Alabama’s Republican Legislators take over State’s Schools… even though they’re not failing.

The lack of news outlets in the states three major newspapers all which publish only three editions weekly (Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register, and the Huntsville Times, now known as “Alabama Media Group” which newspapers are all owned by the same privately held mega-firm that owns Sports Illustrated & Conde Nast – Advance Publications, aka Newhouse News) has – in my estimation – contributed to the demise of public involvement in governance, and to a great degree, influenced voters from participating in their own governance by keeping them ignorant.

However, that does NOT mean that there is no news, nor does it mean that there is a news blackout. What it means is that in those three major cities in the state, there is a dearth of reporting of state events.

For example, the Montgomery Advertiser reported recently that in an email message to his staff, Governor Robert Bentley “demanded that his cabinet members and the state employees who work for them not discuss with state legislators any concerns they might have with a proposed overhaul to state law enforcement agencies.

““I do not want any cabinet head or any member of their department to lobby against this. Tell your employees to contact ONLY Blaine Galliher if they have any questions or concerns. NO ONE is to talk to members of the House or Senate in opposition to this legislation,” Bentley wrote in an email sent to cabinet members by his executive assistant on Feb. 12.”"

Governor Bentley is showing his true face… that of a tyrant.

—

The year Alabama legislators took over schools

by Wayne Flynt
Special to The Star

Mar 10, 2013

Gov. Robert Bentley talks with reporters in Montgomery last week. Photo: Dave Martin/Associated Press

My father grew up poor and never finished high school but was incredibly resourceful. He could “figure things out.” He did his own plumbing, wiring and construction. But on occasion, Dad’s chief asset became a liability. So confident was he in his ability to fix anything that he refused to admit that he didn’t know everything.

That is a good description of the new Republican Legislature. They were elected for good reasons: The hubris, arrogance, excesses, patronage abuse, corruption and demagoguery of Democrats. But the 2013 Legislature reminds me lots of the Democrats they replaced.

Republicans, who hold all state offices and a veto-proof majority in the Legislature, have decided that they know better than anyone how to do everything.

Take education, for instance. Three successive reform-minded state school superintendents — supported by a business community concerned about the loss of one-third of Alabama manufacturing jobs since 2000 and fearful that schools were not producing a labor force skilled enough to compete in the global economy — began reforming education.

They introduced model early childhood programs, world-class math and science curricula, a reading initiative widely copied nationwide, tougher graduation standards, and took over failing schools and malfunctioning systems characterized by patronage politics and financial profligacy (think Birmingham).

Education reformers organized A+ Education Partnership and joined this battle. Their hugely successful “best practices” center and life-changing college-readiness program that enrolls record numbers of students in demanding advanced placement courses constitute instances where Alabama set national standards rather than followed them.

So what does the new Republican Legislature do?

The Birmingham News knew of plot to assassinate Fred Shuttlesworth

The things we continue to learn about the explicit wickedness and evil of that era continues to plague the South, and the nation at large… particularly those who pander to it in the Republican party. And GOP party officials wonder why they continue to lose elections. Perhaps they should get a clue.

—

Good and Evil in Birmingham

January 20, 2013

By DIANE McWHORTER

FIFTY years ago, Birmingham, Ala., provided the enduring iconography of the civil rights era, testing the mettle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so dramatically that he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

During his protest there in May 1963, the biblical spectacle of black children facing down Public Safety Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs set the stage for King’s Sermon on the Mount some four months later at the Lincoln Memorial. And the civil rights movement’s “Year of Birmingham” passed into history as an epic narrative of good versus evil.

Our understanding of the “good” has expanded beyond the lone-dreamer theory to embrace other activists, like King’s partner in Birmingham, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Yet the evil segregationist archetype is fixed in the popular mind as the villainous housewife of “The Help” or the cretinous mob of “Django Unchained” — nobody we’d ever know, or certainly ever be.

But the disquieting reality is that the conflict was between not good and evil, but good and normal. The brute racism that today seems like mass social insanity was a “way of life” practiced by ordinary “good” people.

According to the Southern community’s consensus of “normal,” those fighting for rights now considered mainstream were “extremists,” and public servants could rationalize plans to murder men like Shuttlesworth, confident that they were on the right side of history.

Consider new evidence about a plan by Connor to have Shuttlesworth assassinated. Under Connor’s orders, Detective Tom Cook

Crappy Writing in Huntsville’s nearly defunct newspaper

Critique with explanation follows the story.
—

Huntsville police searching for man who entered family’s hotel room, took laptop and fled

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
November 10, 2012 at 8:59 AM, updated November 10, 2012 at 10:39 AM

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – A family was asleep in a hotel in the 3000 block of University Drive when

The only thing that sucks harder than Alabama’s economy, is Governor Bentley.

Let’s be absolutely certain about a few things.

Number One: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is – as a politician – a liar, thief and utter incompetent who is shitting on the people of Alabama and wiping his dirty ass with the United States Constitution.

Number Two: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is – as a politician – a racist.

Number Three: The majority of the state’s Republican leaders are also incompetent boobs, liars and racists.

Number Four: I have utterly NO respect for the man Robert Bentley. Not as a politician, not as a human being. NONE whatsoever.

I predict Alabama will only be better off only AFTER he leaves… the dirty rotten scumbag.

—

Alabama has the worst economy in the Southeast. Wonder why? (Joey Kennedy)

Published: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 11:30 AM     Updated: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 12:17 PM

By Joey Kennedy | jkennedy@al.com

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley-R, with HB 56 sponsors Sen. Scott Beason-R, left, and Rep. Micky Hammon-R, right, still defends the state’s terrible immigration law, despite the clear damage it has caused to Alabama’s economy. (AP)

Remember when the Legislature was steamrolling through that overreaching, harsh, toughest-in-the-nation immigration law in 2011? The sponsors said not only would be be mean enough to make individuals and families so miserable they’d self-deport, but also would boost Alabama’s economy and put good ol’ red-blooded, U.S. citizen Alabamians back to work.

Odd report this week, then, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which said Alabama has the worst economy in the Southeast. Worse than Louisiana. Worse than South Carolina. Heck, worse than, my goodness, ThankGodforMississippi

Makes us proud, doesn’t it?

There is a saving grace. While Alabama’s economy sucks more than any other in the Southeast, it’s only the fourth worst economy in the United States. Yea us! We’re No. 47!

The outlook for Alabama isn’t that sunny, either, the report says. Unemployment is down to about 8.3 percent, from last October’s 8.8 percent, but economists attribute that to jobs that have simply disappeared, not to jobs having been created.

That, too, can be traced to the immigration law, which left farmers, construction companies, restaurants and other labor-intensive industries looking for workers, then settling for fewer of them when Alabamians failed to fill the jobs.

A University of Alabama economist was ridiculed by state officials and others when he said

Alabama politicians: Wii dont knead know edjewkashun

Time and time again, the politicians in Alabama continue to prove the truth of that February 1, 1993, story Washington Post news story authored by reporter Michael Weisskopf which stated that followers of the Christian Right are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

By the time Governor Bentley and his GOP henchmen get through with Alabama, the only thing the citizens will need is a kiss.

The reason why, is that they’ll already have been screwed.

—

Alabama is great for business, unless you’re in the business of being a kid

Published: Monday, October 22, 2012, 10:25 AM     Updated: Monday, October 22, 2012, 1:04 PM

By John Archibald | jarchibald@al.com

 You know that old Whitney Houston song? What was it, The Greatest Love of All?

It’s happening to … us.

Only here in Alabama we sing it, like we sing most of our tunes, in our own peculiar way.

We believe that corporations are our future.

Seed them well and let them have their way.

As for the children? Well, to hell with them. They’re too little to make us any real cash, anyway. What good are they if they can’t produce jobs, jobs, jobs?

You see the reports and statistics all the time, rankings that paint Alabama as gloriously business friendly, with cheap labor costs, low corporate taxes and a government so eager to lure jobs it’s willing to toss in the barn when it gives away the family farm.

A development magazine this month ranked Alabama as the fourth-best state for business. And of course Alabamians cheered.

They believe it translates into

Alabama: Keep ‘em largely uneducated, ignorant & easy to command

Good grief!

Even Mississippi has a better record!

Why are Alabama‘s legislators so utterly clueless?

Oh… wait.

They’re a reflection of the people. Now it’s all beginning to make sense.

(News item follows the lyrics.)

Mississippi Goddam
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Late… again.

This is gonna’ get real old, real quick.

—

Sent from my typewriter.

Late… again.

The Huntsville Times is owned by the same company that owns the Times Picayune, Sports Illustrated & Condé Nast – Newhouse News.

Alabama‘s three most populous cities – Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile – all have a newspaper which is owned by Newhouse. And, like the Times Picayune, they are laying off staff & reducing coverage, which includes reducing publication to 3 days/week.

Further, those three papers – The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times & The Mobile Press-Register – are all now being printed in Birmingham, even though Mobile is on the Gulf Coast, Huntsville borders Tennessee, and Birmingham is in the middle. So, as you might imagine, it’s a logistical nightmare.

If you’re interested in knowing how many papers & publications they do own (which would astound you), see the entry “Advance Publications,” and the entry “Condé Nast Publications” on Wikipedia for a detailed & lengthy list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cond%C3%A9_Nast_Publications

Feds OK $55M for Alabama tornado recovery

Feds give go-ahead for $55 million to help with tornado recovery in Alabama

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 12:15 PM     Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 2:47 PM

By Robin DeMonia — The Birmingham News

U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (The Birmingham News / Beverly Taylor)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — More than $55 million in federal community development money will be available to help Alabama communities rebuild from a string of tornadoes that hit the state on April 27, 2011.

U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, said

It’s still true: Alabamians are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

One must understand the audience to whom Mr. Archibald writes his Birmingham News OpEds.

They’re the same ones who found hometown favorite criminal Richard Scrushy – monikered as “America’s First Oblivious CEO” – “Not Guilty” of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, who to date, remains the solitary individual ever charged with its violation. Alice Martin, then Federal Prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama, who failed to obtain a guilty verdict in the case, could have moved the trial to New York City – home of Wall Street – or “in Washington, D.C., or in New York City where pecuniary intricacies are understood,” but rather chose Birmingham, Alabama as the trial venue. John C. Coffee, professor of securities law at Columbia Law School, accurately said of the case, that “much of the information was over their heads” and jurors were “sick of trying to understand evidence that was beyond them.”

This remark – right, or wrong (but mostly right) – remains true for Alabama:
Citizens in the state are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.“

In context of course, historically, one should recognize

APTV may have new Executive Director soon

Here’s hoping APTV’s glory days are ahead!

—

Alabama Educational Television Commission calls special meeting to discuss new APT executive director

Published: Friday, August 17, 2012, 3:18 PM     Updated: Friday, August 17, 2012, 5:50 PM

By Bob Carlton — The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The Alabama Educational Television Commission, which has come under attack since it fired Alabama Public Television executive director Allan Pizzato in June, has called a special meeting for Saturday to discuss hiring Pizzato’s replacement.

According to a notice posted this afternoon on the Alabama Open Meetings Act website, one of the items on the agenda for Saturday is the “selection/hiring/appointment and discussion of Executive officers including but not limited to Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.”

The special called meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. at APT headquarters in Birmingham. [Ed. note: The meeting is scheduled for 3PM, Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 2112 11th Avenue South, Suite 400, Birmingham, AL 35205; Contact: 205-328-8756. The Open Meetings Act notice was filed Friday, August 17, 2012 at 12:09:08 PM, and described a "special/called" meeting type.]

Ferris Stephens, chairman of the AETC, confirmed this afternoon that the commission plans to vote on a new executive director at Saturday’s meeting, but he