"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
U.S. Senators • Richard Shelby – R, AL; Jerry Moran – R, KS • John Kennedy – R, LA • Steve Daines – R, MT • John Hoven – R, ND • John Thune – R, SD • Ron Johnson – R, WI -and- U.S. Representative • Kay Granger – R, TX-12 all met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Kremlin in Moscow, July 4, 2018.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says a visit by Republican members of the U.S. Congress should improve ties between the two countries’ legislatures.
The U.S. lawmakers are in Russia this week on what they say is a mission to try to help revive relations, which are severely strained, and observe how Russia’s economy is doing after four years of Western sanctions.
At a meeting on July 3, Lavrov said he hoped the visit will “symbolize the renewal of relations between the parliaments” of the United States and Russia, something he said was “very timely” ahead of the summit in Helsinki — the first full-fledged meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
“We come here realizing that we have a strained relationship, but we could have a better relationship between the U.S. and Russia, because we have some common interests around the world that we could hopefully work together on,” Senator Richard Shelby (Republican-Alabama) told Lavrov at the start of their meeting. “We could be competitors — we are competitors — but we don’t necessarily need to be adversaries.”
The U.S. lawmakers were also meeting with State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, a close ally of Putin, and Konstantin Kosachyov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s International Relations Committee.
The Duma is the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and the Federation Council is the upper chamber. Both are dominated by parties loyal to the Kremlin, and virtually all legislation passed by the parliament has the blessing of the Kremlin.
Before arriving in Moscow late on July 2, the U.S. legislators met in St. Petersburg with the city’s governor, Georgy Poltavchenko, and expressed hopes for improving relations. Poltavchenko told them he was “ready for cooperation on all fronts.”
The legislators were invited to Russia by U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman and are considered to be sympathetic to or allied with U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16 in an effort to revive Russia-U.S. ties after years of deterioration.
“We will have to wait and see, and go from there, but we recognize that the world is better off, I believe, if Russia and the U.S. have fewer tensions,” Shelby said.
Senator John Kennedy (Republican-Louisiana) told CNN he hoped the group would be able to meet with Putin, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov there were no plans for Putin meet with the legislators.
“I want to be able to meet with government officials, try to establish some rapport, talk about common interest, talk about common problems,” Kennedy said, emphasizing that his goal was to “establish rapport between the United States Congress and the Putin administration.”
All members of the delegation voted to pass the legislation last year that tightened and expanded sanctions on Russia, originally imposed over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The legislation, which Trump opposed, also makes it extremely difficult for Trump to lift the sanctions without congressional approval.
Kennedy said he wanted to see how Russia’s economy is doing.
“Some say it’s in shambles,” he told CNN. “Others say with the increase in the price of oil, it’s doing much better. Others say [Russia is] spending all their money on Syria and weaponry and the people are starving to death. Others say that’s not true. So I don’t know.”
Asked if he would bring up the topic of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections, Kennedy said, “Now, I don’t want to do anything to start an international incident, but I believe in talking frankly about these things.”
Kennedy told CNN that there had been a lot of “serious allegations that Russia has interfered with not just our elections,” but with elections in France and Germany as well as with Britain’s vote in 2016 to exit the European Union.
The congressional delegation arrived in Russia on June 30 and plans to stay until July 5. Also included in the group are Senators John Hoeven (Republican-North Dakota), John Thune (Republican-South Dakota), Jerry Moran (Republican-Kansas), Steve Daines (Republican-Montana), and one House of Representatives member, Kay Granger (Republican-Texas).
With reporting by Reuters, AP, CNN, and TASS
RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) journalists report the news in 27 languages in 23 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. We provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Every dog has its day,
and Monday was the Georgia Bulldogs’ day.
Indianapolis, Indiana – January 10, 2022: Defensive back Kelee Ringo #5 with the Georgia Bulldogs leaps to intercept a pass thrown by Heisman Trophy award winning Alabama quarterback Bryce Young #5, late in the 4th quarter, whose intended receiver was wide receiver #11 Traeshaon Holden during the 2022 CFP (College Football Playoff) National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium on January 10, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. After leaping perhaps at least 3 feet to intercept the ball, which some say was “thrown short,” Ringo ran 79 yards for a Bulldog touchdown, sealing the deal for the Bulldogs. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Monday night on 10 January 2022, in Indianapolis, Indiana, in Lucas Oil Stadium, the 3rd-ranked Georgia Bulldogs met the 1st-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide for the NCAA Championship game, and cleaned up with them, taking home bragging rights for the first time as national champions since 1980 when 25-year head Georgia coach Vince Dooley lead them to victory.
Conditions were dry inside Lucas Oil Stadium, but the Georgia Bulldogs rained on the Alabama Crimson Tide’s parade in the 2021 NCAA championship game, taking home their first National Championship in 41 years, 33-18. And after 7 consecutive years of losses to the Tide, the Bulldogs finally managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
This year’s NCAA Championship game was a grudge match, because earlier, the Bulldogs had lost the SEC championship game to Alabama, 41-24, on December 4 in Atlanta, so this victory was “sweet revenge” for the Dawgs.
WH Group’s “global headquarters is strategically located in Hong Kong, with regional headquarters in China and the U.S.,” while the “Headquarters Shuanghui Development in Luohe, Henan Province,” China, and WH Group’s U.S. Headquarters of their Smithfield Foods division is in Smithfield, Virginia.
WH Group is also one of the LARGEST FOREIGN OWNERS of American farmland, with 146,000 acres and that separate sale was worth US$500M, according to the USDA.
Put another way, 146,000 acres is 228.1252 square miles… that’s nearly 20% (18.79% exactly) of the entire state of Rhode Island, which has 1214 square miles.
Unbridled greed in the extreme, aka AVARICE, is to blame. And Americans laws DO NOT FORBID, nor punish, such BAD BEHAVIOR. In fact, it’s REWARDED & ENCOURAGED.
Blame Congress — which has been bought & paid-for by Corporate lobbyists — for their FAILURE TO PROTECT AMERICAN DOMESTIC INTERESTS. THAT is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY.
But let’s do something else. Let’s examine HOW MUCH U.S. land is owned, or controlled by, foreign interests.
Using a 1978 law — the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, which requires foreign entities to report farmland transactions to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency — the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting examined USDA & other Federal data to determine how much land is owned/controlled by foreign interests.
They found that in 2016, foreign investors that year acquired at least 1.6M acres of U.S. farmland. And USDA data shows that either through direct ownership, or long-term leases, foreign investors control at least Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, September 20, 2021
Only thing is, this “First Place award” is nothing to be proud of.
According to figures collected by the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public health officials found that in 2020, for the FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY, more people DIED in Alabama of COVID-19, than were born in Alabama that same year.
Dr. Scott Harris, MD, State Health Officer made the announcement at a press conference September 17, 2021, and said in part, that “Our state literally shrunk.”
Dr. Harris pointed to preliminary statistics which show that 64,714 died last year in the Yellowhammer State, while only 57,641 were born there.
The practically exclusive culprit?
COVID-19.
The disease has ravaged the nation, particularly among politically conservative, and rural hold-outs, many who have steadfastly refused — for whatever false, or malign reason — to receive any of the the THREE FREE vaccines. Furthermore, those same individuals similarly steadfastly refuse to don nose/mouth coverings to protect themselves from others, or others from themselves, falsely claiming that their “freedoms” are at risk if they “take the jab,” or don the mask.
Nobody makes them wear condoms, either. Yet we know that condom use benefits public health by lowering rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, among those whom are sexually active without benefit of a mutually monogamous partner.
Parents have “raised cane,” and pitched “hissy fits” in public places, threatening public officials — school board officials, and others — at public meetings of the schools boards. Some officials have required police protection from the fearsome crowds, some of whom have brandished weapons, including firearms, in their threats. The events have been verging upon being riotous, and not in a good way, which in some cases have become more than mere “civil disturbances.”
The excuses people conjure up to not get a FREE LIFE-SAVING VACCINE are as varied as people themselves. And ALL of them — WITHOUT EXCEPTION — are lies. ALL. OF. THEM.
It’s purely nonsense, and one of the worst public displays of ignorance that one could possibly imagine. And yet, the more ignorant they are, the louder they holler. It certainly seems to be Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, September 9, 2021
COVID-19 wins again!
On July 20, Josh Tidmore, an otherwise healthy 36-year-old Alabama man, came home from work with “a slight cough” and at the time, thought it was just “sinus trouble.”
By August 11 — a mere 23 days later — he was dead.
He leaves behind a 35-year old widow, Christina, and 3 orphaned children.
Josh Tidmore, an otherwise heathy 30-year old Alabama man didn’t last 30 days against COVID-19
Josh believed the lies he read on Facebook about the coronavirus, and unwisely thought he was “healthy enough” to overcome it. Christina said that neither one of them “knew anyone who got real sick from COVID, and figured we would be ‘OK.'”
Was she ever wrong.
Deadly wrong.
Christina explained their reluctance to get vaccinated, in part, by saying,“It wasn’t a political thing, we didn’t want to because we didn’t want to; and the information is such a fight right now, and we thought we were young and healthy it will be okay, and we will wait to see if there is better information.”
There wasn’t.
Christina, who was neither vaccinated, had earlier contracted COVID and recovered. Josh wasn’t so lucky.
Christina and Josh both tested positive for COVID-19 on July 26, and then quarantined for two weeks.
A few days later, Josh was admitted to Marshall Medical Centers South, in Marshall County, AL, and from there, he only got worse.
Christina’s traumatic “wake-up call” came at the hospital when she witnessed Josh die from cardiac arrest, directly caused by the deterioration of his lungs from the COVID-19 infection.
Christina saw and heard Dr. Jenna Carpenter, MD, a Critical Care Pulmonologist who, with her team was caring for Josh, “run a ‘code'” on Josh — medical parlance for ‘his heart stopped beating, so we’re going to pound on his chest until his ribs break, inject strong chemicals into his veins to irritate his heart, and then shock the beejeebers out of him… all in the hope that his heart will decide to start beating once again.’
Jerry and Deborah Watson died just days apart from COVID-19. The two were longtime fixtures at the Gadsden Chick-fil-A restaurant.
Jerry and Deborah Watson, who lived in Gadsden, AL and worked together at a local Chick-fil-A restaurant for many years died just days apart from each other of COVID-19.
Alabama Family On Pregnant RN & Fetus Dead from COVID
Published: Aug. 23, 2021, 5:39 p.m. – Updated: Aug. 24, 2021, 7:27 a.m.
Haley Richardson, RN, a 32-year old Labor and Delivery Nurse who worked at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, FL and lived in Theodore, AL in Mobile County, died of COVID-19 on August 20, 2021. She was NOT vaccinated. The baby within her – whom she had named Ryleigh Beth – had died 2 days before she did.
Her widower, Jordan Richardson, will be taking care of Katie, their 3-year old daughter whom she orphaned. She was pregnant with the couple’s second child, which died in utero 2 days before she did.
Haley and Jordan Richardson with daughter Katie.
Jason Whatley, a family friend whose wife was maid of honor at Haley’s wedding, reported that Haley contracted COVID-19 in late July or early August, about three weeks before she died, and said that, “She was home sick for about a week and then her heart rate went up.”
Haley was initially admitted to the University of South Alabama Health system’s Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Mobile, then after a few days, was transported to the ICU at USA Health’s main hospital campus also in Mobile.
Haley’s mother, Julie Mulkey said, “After about three or four days in the hospital, the OB told her that she was going to lose the baby. And she continued to get worse and worse. At some point, they basically told her that we’ve got to start treating you as if you didn’t have a child. We’ve got to do what we can for you because the baby is going to pass anyway.”
Mr. Whatley said physicians treating Haley had earlier placed her on a transfer waiting list to the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital to be connected to a ECMO (Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine, sometimes also called a “heart/lung machine,” which Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, August 1, 2021
California U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell (RIGHT), a Democrat for the state’s 15th Congressional District, listens to testimony of U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn describing the Trump-led terrorist attacks upon Congress at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress was preparing to certify the election results.
The Alabama GOP Mo-ron Brooks, POS45, and his corrupt lying entourage will likely end up in prison… hopefully – if there’s any justice at all in this violently topsy-turvy world.
In a Federal Court filing Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the United States Department of Justice served notice that they will not be representing Alabama GOP Representative Morris “Mo” Brooks-CD5 in California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s-CD15 lawsuit against him, Donald John Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., and Rudolph Giuliani.
“Brooks submitted a request to the Department of Justice (“Department”) for certification under the Westfall Act that he was acting within the scope of his office or employment as a Member of Congress at the time of the conduct alleged in the Complaint. Brooks later petitioned this Court for a scope-of-employment certification, and the Court called for the United States to respond by July 27, 2021.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, July 24, 2021
“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that ‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’.
“A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.
“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu.’
“So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.
Dr. Brytney Cobia, MD is a Hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, AL.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, July 2, 2021
Ironic, isn’t it, how nature has a way of meting out its own justice?
Seth Bishop (LEFT B&W), age 18, younger brother of Amy Bishop Anderson; Seth Anderson, son of Amy Bishop Anderson, 20.
FormerUniversity of Alabama at Huntsville killer Assistant Professor Amy Bishop Anderson— whose son Seth was named after her younger brother, whom also Braintree, Massachusetts authorities believe she killed December 1986 when she was then 21-years-old — himself became a fatal shooting victim Monday, 20 April 2021, in Huntsville.
Huntsville Police issued a public statement that same day, that reckless murder charges had been filed against 18-year old Vincent Harmon, after a shooting victim with life-threatening injuries was admitted to Huntsville Hospital emergency services around 8PM Monday, 20 April 2021, and later died.
Harmon Vincent, age 18, shot & killed Seth Anderson, 20, son of convicted UAH killer Amy Bishop Anderson, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Authorities had not initially named the victim because the next of kin had not yet been notified, but Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, June 4, 2021
Flowering bud (female) of the Cannabis Sativa plant, aka “marijuana”
There are 49 other states to which Alabama could turn to examine what works, and what does not, and could emulate the best of the best.
But, Alabama’s gonna’ Alabama, regardless of who, or what party’s in office.
Alabama patient advocates may have celebrated following “Guvnah Memaw’s” signature on the “Darren Wesley ‘Ato’ Hall Compassion Act” sponsored by Republican State Senator Dr. Tim Melson, MD (District 1).
But now, reality is about to set in.
The law, like so many others, is a fiasco. Citizens should rejoice the legislature cannot figure out how to connive and wheedle a gambling scheme to benefit themselves, or their “Big Mule” cronies.
Superficially, the “compassion act” sounds good.
That’s where it stops.
The law leaves patients high and dry when it comes to protecting them, and:
• Allows them to be fired without recourse, denied UC benefits, and denied Worker’s Comp benefits “regardless of the individual’s impairment or lack of impairment resulting from the use of medical cannabis.” {page 15, line 20, §20-2A-6(a)(10)} {page 16, line 13, §20-2A-6(a)(11)(c)}
But then, patient abandonment & neglect is Alabama’s forte.
• Allows DHR to remove children from a patient’s household, and states that the agency shall not be prohibited from “considering a parent or caretaker’s use of medical cannabis as a factor for determining the welfare of a child.” {page 16, line 19, §20-2A-6(a)(11)(d)}
• Penalizes diversion much more harshly than trafficking <500lbs of marijuana – 2 to 20 years vs 5 years + $50,000 fine, respectively. {Section 13A-12-231(1)(a)&(b)}
• Automatically suspends the driver’s license of “any person who is recommended a daily dosage of medical cannabis that exceeds 75 mg… regardless of whether he or she holds a valid medical cannabis card.” {page 99, line 9, Section 6}
• Taxes collected, over and above the board’s operating expenses, less 10%, will go to… The General Fund. {page 22, line 18, §20-2A-10(3)(c)}
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, June 4, 2021
I would be very surprised if the judge in his case did not mandate that he receive mental health help. And, s/he certainly should.
The man is clearly delusional.
And with severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, that’s often the case, that, not only are the individuals delusional, but they’re also frequently highly religious.
Man accused of stealing fire service car from Alabama fire station.
Said,“God told me to.”
A man accused of stealing a marked fire vehicle from a Prichard, Alabama Fire-Rescue station was arrested Wednesday. Prichard is in Mobile County, and adjacent the City of Mobile on its Northern border. The town’s population is under 23,000.
According to FOX10 News – WALA-TV, Virtual Channel 10 (RF Channel 9), Mobile, Alabama – Jeffrey McCants was found a few hours after the crime was committed. The vehicle was stolen from the central station on Turner Road.
Prichard Police tracked the car down and got the suspect out at gun point.
Surveillance video shows Jeffery McCants Jr. walking into central fire station on Turner Road in Prichard.
He had a gas can in his hand and was looking in an area where Prichard Fire and Rescue members say they once stored gasoline. He then walked over to the station’s Ford Crown Victoria, got inside, sat there for a moment and then started it up. He then backed it up, and drove it out of the garage.
“It had the keys in it. I needed some gas so therefore I took the car, I had to. It was the only way to get gas. It said ‘hey man, you’ll get there faster if you take me,’ so I said, ‘ok, car, ima take it,’ so I took it and I washed it. I washed the car,” he said.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin has used the executive authority of the mayor’s office to issue blanket pardons for all misdemeanor marijuana-related offenses issued by the city from 1990-2020.
His actions were on April 20th, a day adopted by cannabis advocates as their celebratory day, and he Tweeted that,
“Today, I issued a pardon of 15,000 people convicted of marijuana possession in Birmingham between 1990-2020. These pardons are Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Direct economic losses attributable to child abuse and neglect cost the State of Alabama $3.7 billion in 2018, according to a study conducted by The University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences and The University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research.
Researchers found that “the tangible cost of child maltreatment (or child abuse and neglect) to the Alabama economy in 2018 is conservatively estimated to be $3.7 billion.”
The report entitled “The Cost of Child Maltreatment to the Alabama Economy” found that figure is the direct cost which the state bears if only the child victims are considered, and does not include associated costs to families (including extended ones) and communities that are known to occur.
The research which was conducted in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and The Children’s Trust Fund, found that cost of lost worker productivity of victims was the single greatest financial cost – $2,629,685,802, while costs to the state child welfare system exceed $281,886,848, and Adult Criminality costs were conservatively found to be $109,469,664.
Child maltreatment causes preventable infant mortality and low birthweight, chronic health and mental health problems, developmental and educational delays, lower work productivity, and higher involvement with the criminal justice system.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 9, 2021
News reports this morning are stating that in the matter of the unionization vote at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL slightly over half of all ballots sent out were returned.
Of the nearly 5800 ballots mailed out to Amazon employees at their Bessemer, Alabama facility, only about 55% were returned.
Only 3,215 ballots were received by the National Labor Relations Board in the election.
There were 5,867 ballots were sent out to Amazon workers in early February – that’s a 54.798% return rate.
At 1025 CST today, unofficial results were that the “NO” votes on the question of unionization were 1,798, while the “YES” votes were 738.
Amazon challenged 505 challenged ballots, and there were 76 voided ballots.
At the conclusion of the tally, an official from the National Labor Relations Board – a Federal governmental entity – said that “Challenges are not sufficient in number to affect the results of this election.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, April 8, 2021
This matter was just brought to my attention.
The figure 0.3% is 3/10ths of 1% (three tenths of one percent) – NOT “three one-thousandths” as they incorrectly wrote.
Any grade school child should be able to tell the difference.
Note the emboldened text highlighted in purple on the lower portion of the page.
And examine the dates…
NO ONE has caught that gross error since the time it was written – 2 years 4 months 20 days
or 28 months 20 days
or 124 weeks 3 days
or 871 calendar days
and updated –
1 year 7 months 26 days
or 19 months 26 days
or 86 weeks 2 days
or 604 calendar days.
If the folks working in that office are that dimwitted, or lazy – take your pick – what does that say about the rest of the state government?
Remember: Steve Marshall’s incompetency is precisely why former Governor Bentley wanted him in that office, in order to avoid prosecution.
The history of it all is utterly Machiavelian – Steve Marshall fired Matt Hart, a former Federal Prosecutor who was a tenaciously aggressive and fearsome Special Prosecutor for the State, who Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, April 8, 2021
Looks like John let the little head do the thinking for the big head.
He also likes anal sex – something his wife apparently doesn’t give him.
Yes… it’s true:
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has been caught red-handed in an extra-marital relationship, much to the chagrin of his cult-like followers who were hoping he would campaign for the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat held by almost-nonagenarian Democrat-turned-Republican-since-1994 Richard Shelby (b.1934), who has occupied the office since 1986, which is up for grabs in 2022.
“He was such an idiot. And he would talk, just… I don’t know if you ever met him outside of looking like he’s a professional, he’s a total [sic] different person. He’s sometimes funny, and he’s charismatic, and he has a sense of humor… but then, when the real John Merrill stands up, then you’re kinda’ like ‘uggh.'”
– Cesaire McPherson, 44-year old Legal Assistant, and lover to Alabama Republican Secretary of State John Merrill in phone interview with National File about their extramarital sexual relationship
Of note, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service on December 17, 2020 updated their report “Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile” which found that the average age of the average Senator was 62.9 years, while the average age of the Members of the House of Representatives was 57.6. At the time of the report, there were only 3 African American Senators – Kamala Harris, D-CA Corey Booker, D-NJ, and Tim Scott, R-SC. Since Kamala Harris is now Vice President, there are now only 2 African American Senators. And, the oldest Senator in the 116th Congress was Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, born June 22, 1933, who was then aged 85.
Merrill’s official statement said that, “With the end of my term coming up in January of 2023, I have been presented with a variety of options for where my path in public service could lead. I have decided that I will not be a candidate for any office in 2022.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, March 28, 2021
Should government exercise control over its citizens to the extent that:
a.) Certain types of private health care is illegal;
b.) Certain people are denied care?
Should your neighbors (aka “the government”) have the right to tell you, and/or your family, what you can, or cannot be treated for by a licensed healthcare professional?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 11, 2021
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins
A significant number of the American people have been bamboozled, swindled, and otherwise cheated and lied to for at least the past 40+ years, at least since 1980, and beginning in earnest in January 1981 with the Reagan administration.
In actuality, the Republican party’s seeds of destruction were sown in 1964 at the Republican National Convention in Daly City, California when then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller warned the assembled delegates that
“The Republican party is in real danger of subversion
by
a radical, well-financed,
and
highly disciplined minority.”
He was given 5 minutes to address the delegates, but was booed for over 16 minutes.
Why?
He was seeking the inclusion of language in the official party platform which would have said,
“The Republican Party fully respects the contribution of responsible criticism, and defends the right of dissent in the democratic process. But we repudiate the efforts of irresponsible, extremist groups, such as the Communists, the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society and others, to discredit our Party by their efforts to infiltrate positions of responsibility in the Party, or to attach themselves to its candidates.”
One would think that such language condemning and repudiating the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and others, would have been welcomed.
Ku Klux Klansmen rally in support of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the GOP 1964 Presidential nominee. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images
But, it wasn’t.
That was the year Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was the party’s Presidential nominee.
That was also the year the GOP suffered one of the greatest losses in American political history.
A mere 6 states – Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina – voted for Barry Goldwater.
Lyndon Baines Johnson won in a landslide with 486 Electoral College votes to Goldwater’s 52.
The Popular Vote was just as decisive:
Johnson 43,127,041 (61.1%), to Goldwater 27,175,754 (38.5%).
The next quadrennial election cycle proved to be a harbinger of things to come.
Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse
In 1968, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace – a stridently biogted racist and segregationist, at the height of his hatred of Blacks – campaigned on the American Independent ticket against Republican Richard Nixon of New York, and Minnesota Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey, who had been LBJ’s Vice President. That year’s election was equally decisive in its victory, but what may be most interesting, is the fact that as a 3rd Party Candidate, the openly racist, bigoted Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, though he was a Democratic governor, campaigned on a platform of racial segregation as a Presidential candidate on the American Independent ticket – and commonly, though incorrectly known as a “Dixiecrat” – won 5 states (AL, AR, GA, LA, MS) and their 46 Electoral College votes, along with 9,901,118 Popular Votes, for 13.5% of all Popular Votes cast. It remains the strongest showing of a 3rd Party candidate in American political history. Not even John B. Anderson in 1980, or Ross Perot in 1992 won any Electoral College Votes, though Ross Perot made a good showing among the Popular Vote with 19,743,821, or 18.9% of all Popular Votes cast, and in 1996, Perot secured 8,085,294 Popular Votes, which was 8.4% of all Popular Votes cast, though he never won any Electoral College votes in any election.
Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski
Wallace’s strong showing among those 5 Southern states in 1968 was resounding evidence of how pervasive, ingrained, and embedded – how thoroughly infiltrated – the message of hate, and he as its chief messenger – along with the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society, and other such elements as then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had mentioned at 1964’s RNC convention – had become in the South. Sadly, Nixon did nothing to help, and rather, relied upon a “Southern Strategy” to win over those very voters – the racist bigoted “Dixiecrats” who had become enured with the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and others – to welcome them into the fold of the Republican Party.
Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” was the creation, per se (it was more an anthropological and demographic analysis of long-term trends than anything else), of Kevin Phillips (b.1940), a brilliant, if not genius (matriculated Colgate University aged 16, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, spent his junior year at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, where he knew more about Scottish history than his Scottish classmates), Harvard Law-educated man who authored the 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority“ in which he detailed an ethnographic political strategy that capitalized upon, an exploited alleged hostilities between the Irish, Italians, and Poles, and Jews, Negroes, and affluent Yankees to achieve its goals. He later abandoned the GOP in the 1990’s after becoming grossly disaffected by them.
Having now authored over 13 books, the premise of his first book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” was the presumption that most voters “still voted on the basis of ethnic or cultural enmities that could be graphed, predicted and exploited. For instance, the old bitterness toward Protestant Yankee Republicans that had for generations made Democrats out of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants had now shifted, among their children and grandchildren, to resentment of the new immigrants – Negroes and Latinos – and against the national Democratic party, whose Great Society programs increasingly seemed to reflect favoritism for the new minorities over the old.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 11, 2021
Suddenly, a Juror becomes a Witness!
Senator from Utah, Mike Lee suddenly stood up and said…
“Statements were attributed to me moments ago by the House Impeachment Managers. Statements relating to the content of conversations between a phone call involving President Trump and Senator Tuberville were not made by me. They’re not accurate, and they’re contrary to fact. I move pursuant to Rule 16 that they be stricken from the record.”
There is NO court of jurisdiction EVER which has allowed a juror to become a witness also.
Lead Impeachment Manager Representative Jamie Raskin, Maryland-8, Democrat
In the trial’s final hour of arguments on Day 2, Wednesday, February 11, 2021, Representative David Cicilline, an Impeachment Manager, and Democrat of Rhode Island-1, spoke of then-President Trump who, during the very midst of the insurrection and breach of the Capitol building, had mistakenly called Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, in an effort to reach newly-elected first-time politician Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a former football coach for Auburn University. In describing the call, which was detailed in numerous news reports, Representative Cicilline asserted that Senator Lee had stood by as Trump asked Senator Tuberville to make additional objections to the certification of President Biden’s electoral votes.
“With a mob of election protesters laying siege to the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Mike Lee had just ended a prayer with some of his colleagues in the Senate chamber when his cellphone rang.
Caller ID showed the call originated from the White House. Lee thought it might be national security adviser Robert O’Brien, with whom he’d been playing phone tag on an unrelated issue. It wasn’t O’Brien. It was President Donald Trump.
“How’s it going, Tommy?” the president asked.
Taken a little aback, Lee said this isn’t Tommy.
“Well, who is this? Trump asked. “It’s Mike Lee,” the senator replied. “Oh, hi Mike. I called Tommy.”
Lee told the Deseret News he realized Trump was trying to call Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the newly elected Republican from Alabama and former Auburn University football coach. Lee walked his phone over to Tuberville who was talking to some colleagues.
“Hey, Tommy, I hate to interrupt but the president wants to speak with you,” Lee said.
Tuberville and Trump talked for about five to 10 minutes, Lee said, adding that he stood nearby because he didn’t want to lose his cellphone in the commotion. The two were still talking when panicked police ordered the Capitol to be evacuated because people had breached security.
As police were getting anxious for senators to leave, Lee walked over to retrieve his phone.
“I don’t want to interrupt your call with the president, but we’re being evacuated and I need my phone,” he said.
Tuberville said, “OK, Mr. President. I gotta go.”
Lee said when he later asked Tuberville about the conversation, he got the impression that Trump didn’t know about the chaos going on in the Senate chamber.
Impeachment Manager David Ciciline, a Democrat representing Rhode Island-1 said,
“Senator Lee described it. He had just ended a prayer with his colleagues here in the Senate chamber, and the phone rang. It was Donald Trump. Senator Lee explains that the phone call goes something like this. ‘Hey, Tommy,’ Trump asks. Sen. Lee says, ‘This isn’t Tommy.’ He hands the phone to Senator Tuberville.
“Senator Lee then confirmed that he stood by as Senator Tuberville and President Trump spoke on the phone. And on that call, Donald Trump reportedly asked Senator Tuberville to make additional objections to the certification process.”
Senator Lee NEVER objected to the news report which he himself had told to Deseret News on January 7, 2021. Nor did he note that any corrections should be made to it, and there is no errata or corrections cited on the story.
As Impeachment Manager Representative Ciciline was speaking, Senator Lee became apparently agitated and wrote in large letters upon a sheet of paper from a legal pad at his desk “This is not what happened.” and then handed the paper to David Schoen, one of Trump’s lawyers.
As Lead Impeachment Manager Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat representing Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, was at the speaker’s podium and was attempting to close the day’s session, Senator Lee then stood up, and Read the rest of this entry »
The mention of his religion is of no consequence, save perhaps, for the fact that he had asked for, then rescinded his request for the trial to take a day off – Saturday, beginning from sundown Friday, to sunrise Sunday (the Jewish “sabbath”) – to attend Synagogue, wear his little beanie, not use electricity, not serve dairy and meat together (like on a cheeseburger), or to practice whatever superstitious silliness that religiously observant Jews practice on Saturdays – just like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, Loser Trump’s second child, and first-born daughter, of whom he said that he would be “dating her” (TRANSLATE: Having sex with) if he wasn’t married to Malaria, er… Melania, and noted that she was a “fine piece of ass.”
The TEMERITY to quote Lincoln in his closing remarks!
Is he trying to defend, or prosecute his client?
The atrocity occurs very near the closing after 3:57… that’s 3 HOURS and 57 minutes.
“Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right, and PART with him when he goes wrong.” –– The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Peoria, Illinois” (October 16, 1854), p. 273.
And then, to read – and give an UTTERLY HORRIBLE performance of – an 1849 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!
That’s utter heresy!
The atrocity!
A goddamn moron, he is.
Schoen, a 3rd rate goofball, who the Piece of Shit former loser President hired after his first slew of attorneys quit in disgust, after the shit bag insisted that they base their claim of defense that he lost because of massive vote fraud, and they refused.
What?
Giuliani couldn’t do it?
Loser Trumpanzee is a goddamn moron.
Schoen is the 3rd, or 4th string.
Loser Trumpanzee can barely sign his name with a Sharpie permanent marker. He butchers words like “Yosemite” pronouncing it instead as “Yo – Semite” as if he were talking to his bigoted Semite son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Yeah… the bigot who was credibly accused of housing discrimination (he’s a slumlord) against Blacks, and rather than go to trial, agreed to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Monday night, 25 January 2021, a tornado swept across north central Alabama in the small Jefferson county town of Fultondale, a bedroom community adjacent to and north of Birmingham, the state’s most populous city.
Long considered part of the state’s “Tornado Alley,” residents were struck around 10:30 PM when a category EF-2 storm with winds in excess of 135 mph (217 kph), twisted a quarter-mile wide swath of destruction after touching down near Interstate 65 and mowed a 10-mile path from Fultondale to Center Point in the same area destroyed by another, larger tornado some years earlier.
Patti Herring sobs as she sorts through the remains of her home in Fultondale, Ala., on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, after it was destroyed by a tornado. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
Fultondale residents haven’t forgotten about April 27, 2011 when they were struck by the tail end of an EF-4 tornado that wreaked a devastating path from the college town of Tuscaloosa south and west of Birmingham, though northern Jefferson County killing 65, and injuring 1500. The National Weather Service said that storm was over 80 miles (130 kilometers) long.
Last night’s search and rescue efforts were hampered by darkness, and indiscriminate wreckage which was strewn about like so much flotsam and jetsam. First Responders and rescuers from throughout the county sifting through the rubble were weary by daybreak, but kept up their efforts, hoping to find people, instead of bodies. Their hopes were Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Larry Dixon
Larry Dixon, a longtime Republican Alabama State Senator, who for many years also chaired the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners died from COVID-19 last week, aged 78.
Dr. David Thrasher, MD, a Critical Care Pulmonologist (lung doctor) in the state’s capitol city of Montgomery, who was Dixon’s longtime friend and treated him in the early stages of the disease, said Dixon was exposed to the coronavirus at a social gathering “with a couple of guys” that was hosted outside about two weeks ago.
And while he was unsure how many people attended, Dr. Thrasher said he knew of two other men who attended the meetup and tested positive.
Dr. Thrasher also said that Larry’s wife Gaynell Dixon also contracted COVID-19 and is still recovering. He also said the couple has two daughters who both contracted the virus earlier this year and have recovered, and so far, do not appear to have been reinfected by their parents.
Dr. Thrasher spoke with Dixon’s wife Gaynell before Larry was placed on a ventilator, and said that Larry’s family wanted to let The People of Alabama know his last words:
“We messed up.
We let our guard down.
Please tell everybody to be careful,
and take this thing seriously.
This is real,
and if you get diagnosed,
get help immediately.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, October 21, 2020
This is what the soft hatred of bigotry cloaked in religious garb looks like.
This revelation should come as no surprise, that a radicalized right-wing religious zealot should serve at a high level on the Board of Directors for three schools in three separate states under a common umbrella would discriminate.
Below her image are three more images of the same type thing.
This person must NOT be confirmed to the nation’s highest court!
And toward that end, perhaps it may alarm you to know that a Ku Klux Klansman has been seated on the nation’s highest court.
You can read Matt Reimann’s excellently succinct August 15, 2017 article via the link above. Of note, Mr. Justice Black was also a “textualist” on matters of interpretation of the Constitution – the same thing late Justice Scalia said he was, and which Judge Barrett says she is.
“CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she is preparing for when Amy Coney Barrett takes her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was asked to share her thoughts Tuesday on the judge and minced no words.
“Mayor Lightfoot was first asked if she views the U.S. Constitution as Judge Barrett does, as an “originalist.”
“Originalists firmly believe all statements in the U.S. Constitution must be strictly interpreted based on the original understanding at the time the Constitution was adopted. They do not believe in the concept of a “Living Constitution” that can be interpreted in the context of current times.
““You ask a gay, black woman if she is an originalist? No, ma’am, I am not,” Lightfoot laughed.
““That the Constitution didn’t consider me a person in any way, shape or form because I’m a woman, because I’m black, because I’m gay? I am not an originalist. I believe in the Constitution. I believe that it is a document that the founders intended to evolve and what they did was set the framework for how our country was going to be different from any other.
““But originalists say that, ‘Let’s go back to 1776 and whatever was there in the original language, that’s it.’ That language excluded, now, over 50 percent of the country. So, no I’m not an originalist.”
“Mayor Lightfoot said she’s deeply worried about some of Judge Barrett’s stated views, for instance, being against gay marriage.
““I deeply worry about this woman’s stated views. She’s on the record on a number of different things, not the least of which is thinking that gay marriage is something that shouldn’t be countenanced. And she’s got soulmates in Justice Thomas and others, who think that the decision by the Supreme Court…should somehow be rolled back,” Lightfoot said.
““What should I tell my daughter — that somehow now my wife and I are no longer married? That we’re no longer legitimately recognized in the eyes of the law? That is dangerous, dangerous territory. And what about a woman’s right to choose? We’re gonna keep re-litigating this issue, and we’re gonna make abortion illegal, as Amy Coney Barrett thinks it should be?”
“The Mayor also called Republicans “hypocrites” for pushing the Barrett nomination when they put off taking up the Merrick Garland nomination by President Obama.
“”The hypocrisy is something that is a bitter pill for me to swallow,” Lightfoot said.”
The September 13, 1937 front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette printed an image of Black’s KKK resignation letter.
“Hugo Black had been associate justice of the Supreme Court for less than a month when the news broke. In September of 1937, an exposé by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found proof of Black’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan. He had joined in September of 1923, and resigned in July, 1925, as one of his first moves before running for one of Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat. Ironically, the smoking gun was Black’s resignation letter, written in legible longhand on Klan stationery, which appeared on the paper’s front page.
“Franklin Roosevelt, who nominated Hugo Black, was implicated in the scandal, which threatened to have far-reaching consequences for the president’s New Deal image. What was once seen as shrewd politics — the New Deal-friendly textualist was confirmed with a 63–16 vote — had become a disgrace. “Millions of Americans,” wrote one Indiana newspaper, “will not forget this sole tangible accomplishment of President Roosevelt’s attempted ‘liberalization’ of the Supreme Court.”
“When asked by the press to remark on the scandal, Roosevelt brushed questions aside, saying, “I only know what I have read in the newspapers. I know that the stories are appearing serially and their publication is not complete. Mr. Justice Black is in Europe where, undoubtedly, he cannot get the full text of these articles. Until such time as he returns, there is no further comment to be made.”“
apnews.com
Barrett Was Trustee At Private School With Anti-Gay Policies
By Michelle R. Smith and Michael Biesecker
October 21, 2020 at 10:51:08 AM CDT
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom.
The policies that discriminated against LGBTQ people and their children were in place for years at Trinity Schools Inc., both before Barrett joined the board in 2015 and during the time she served.
The three schools, in Indiana, Minnesota and Virginia, are affiliated with People of Praise, an insular community rooted in its own interpretation of the Bible, of which Barrett and her husband have been longtime members. At least three of the couple’s seven children have attended the Trinity School at Greenlawn, in South Bend, Indiana.
The AP spoke with more than two dozen people who attended or worked at Trinity Schools, or former members of People of Praise. They said the community’s teachings have been consistent for decades: Homosexuality is an abomination against God, sex should occur only within marriage, and marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Interviewees told the AP that Trinity’s leadership communicated anti-LGBTQ policies and positions in meetings, one-on-one conversations, enrollment agreements, employment agreements, handbooks and written policies — including those in place when Barrett was an active member of the board.
“Trinity Schools does not unlawfully discriminate with respect to race, color, gender, national origin, age, disability, or other legally protected classifications under applicable law, with respect to the administration of its programs,” said Jon Balsbaugh, president of Trinity Schools Inc., which runs the three campuses, in an email.
The actions are probably legal, experts said. Scholars said the school’s and organization’s teachings on homosexuality and treatment of LGBTQ people are harsher than those of the mainstream Catholic church. In a documentary released Wednesday, Pope Francis endorsed civil unions for the first time as pope, and said in an interview for the film that, “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God.”
Barrett’s views on whether LGBTQ people should have the same constitutional rights as other Americans became a focus last week in her Senate confirmation hearing. But her longtime membership in People of Praise and her leadership position at Trinity Schools were not discussed, even though most of the people the AP spoke with said her deep and decades-long involvement in the community signals she would be hostile to gay rights if confirmed.
Suzanne B. Goldberg, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies sexuality and gender law, said private schools have wide legal latitude to set admissions criteria. And, she said, Trinity probably isn’t covered by recent Supreme Court rulings outlawing employment discrimination against LGBTQ people because of its affiliation with a religious community. But, she added, cases addressing those questions are likely to come before the high court in the near future, and Barrett’s past oversight of Trinity’s discriminatory policies raises concerns.
“When any member of the judiciary affiliates themselves with an institution that is committed to discrimination on any ground, it is important to look more closely at how that affects the individual’s ability to give all cases a fair hearing,” Goldberg said.
The AP sent detailed questions for Barrett to the White House press office. Rather than providing direct answers, White House spokesman Judd Deere instead accused AP of attacking the nominee.
“Because Democrats and the media are unable to attack Judge Barrett’s sterling qualifications, they have instead turned to pathetic personal attacks on her children’s Christian school, even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that religious schools are protected by the First Amendment,” Deere said in an email.
Nearly all the people interviewed for this story are gay or said they have gay family members. They used words such as “terrified,” “petrified” and “frightening” to describe the prospect of Barrett on the high court. Some of them know Barrett, have mutual friends with her or even have been in her home dozens of times. They describe her as “nice” or “a kind person,” but told the AP they feared others would suffer if Barrett tries to implement People of Praise’s views on homosexuality on the Supreme Court.
About half of the people asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation against themselves or their families from other members of People of Praise, or because they had not come out to everyone in their lives. Among those interviewed were people who attended all three of its schools and who had been active in several of its 22 branches. Their experiences stretched back as far as the 1970s, and as recently as 2020.
NOT WELCOME
Tom Henry was a senior at Trinity School in Eagan, Minnesota, serving as a student ambassador, providing tours to prospective families, when Barrett was an active member of the board.
In early 2017, a lesbian parent asked him whether Trinity was open to gay people and expressed concern about how her child would be treated.
Henry, who is gay, said he didn’t know what to say. He had been instructed not to answer questions about People of Praise or Trinity’s “politics.”
The next day, Henry recalled, he asked the school’s then-headmaster, Jon Balsbaugh, how he should have answered. Henry said Balsbaugh pulled a document out of his desk drawer that condemned gay marriage, and explained it was a new policy from People of Praise that was going into the handbook.
“He looked me right in the eye and said, the next time that happens, you tell them they would not be welcome here,” Henry recounted. “And he said to me that trans families, gay families, gay students, trans students would not feel welcome at Trinity Schools. And then he said, ‘Do we understand each other?’ And I said, yes. And I left. And then I quit the student ambassadors that day.”
Balsbaugh, who has since been promoted to president of Trinity Schools Inc., says his recollection of the conversation “differs considerably,” but declined Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, October 17, 2020
Scottie Alton Johnson, a 45-year old Alabama resident, and ward of the state’s prison system, died from complications from COVID-19 on August 1, 2020, according to autopsy results.
Records show that on July 31, authorities took him to a hospital nearest the Bullock Correctional Facility which is located in Union Springs, in Bullock County. Though authorities did not specify, Bullock County Hospital at 104 Bullock Drive, Union Springs, Alabama is less than 3 miles straight down the road, West from the prison.
He died August 1.
At the time of his admission to hospital, he was not thought to be infected with the novel coronavirus, and a COVID-19 test conducted upon his admission resulted negative.
by Stephen Fowler, Georgia Public Broadcasting
Oct. 17, 2020
5 a.m. EDT
Congress works for you. Learn how to be a better boss with the User’s Guide to Democracy, a series of personalized emails about what your representatives actually do.
This article is co-published by ProPublica, Georgia Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio.
Kathy spotted the long line of voters as she pulled into the Christian City Welcome Center about 3:30 p.m., ready to cast her ballot in the June 9 primary election.
Hundreds of people were waiting in the heat and rain outside the lush, tree-lined complex in Union City, an Atlanta suburb with 22,400 residents, nearly 88% of them Black. She briefly considered not casting a ballot at all, but decided to stay.
By the time she got inside more than five hours later, the polls had officially closed and the electronic scanners were shut down. Poll workers told her she’d have to cast a provisional ballot, but they promised that her vote would be counted.
“I’m now angry again, I’m frustrated again, and now I have an added emotion, which is anxiety,” said Kathy, a human services worker, recalling her emotions at the time. She asked that her full name not be used because she fears repercussions from speaking out. “I’m wondering if my ballot is going to count.”
By the time the last voter finally got inside the welcome center to cast a ballot, it was the next day, June 10.
The clogged polling locations in metro Atlanta reflect an underlying pattern: The number of places to vote has shrunk statewide, with little recourse. Although the reduction in polling places has taken place across racial lines, it has primarily caused long lines in non-White neighborhoods where voter registration has surged and more residents cast ballots in person on Election Day. The pruning of polling places started long before the pandemic, which has discouraged people from voting in person.
In Georgia, considered a battleground state for control of the White House and U.S. Senate, the difficulty of voting in Black communities like Union City could possibly tip the results on Nov. 3. With massive turnout expected, lines could be even longer than they were for the primary, despite a rise in mail-in voting and Georgians already turning out by the hundreds of thousands to cast ballots early.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision in 2013 eliminated key federal oversight of election decisions in states with histories of discrimination, Georgia’s voter rolls have grown by nearly 2 million people, yet polling locations have been cut statewide by nearly 10%, according to an analysis of state and local records by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. Much of the growth has been fueled by younger, non-White voters, especially in nine metro Atlanta counties, where four out of five new voters were non-White, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
The metro Atlanta area has been hit particularly hard. The nine counties — Fulton, Gwinnett, Forsyth, DeKalb, Cobb, Hall, Cherokee, Henry and Clayton — have nearly half of the state’s active voters but only 38% of the polling places, according to the analysis.
As a result, the average number of voters packed into each polling location in those counties grew by nearly 40%, from about 2,600 in 2012 to more than 3,600 per polling place as of Oct. 9, the analysis shows. In addition, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, September 16, 2020
The Latest: Mayor says 1 dead, 1 missing in coastal Alabama
Waves near a damaged pier at Gulf State Park after Hurricane Sally moved through, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Gulf Shores, AL. Sally made landfall Wednesday near Gulf Shores, as a Category 2 storm, pushing a surge of ocean water onto the coast and dumping torrential rain that forecasters said would cause dangerous flooding from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi and well inland in the days ahead.(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
By The Associated Press
ORANGE BEACH, Alabama — The mayor of a coastal Alabama town says one person has died as a result of Hurricane Sally.
Mayor Tony Kennon of Orange Beach tells The Associated Press that the person died Wednesday. He added that one other person is missing. Kennon said no other details would be released immediately.
Sally came ashore Wednesday morning near the popular vacation destination as a major hurricane. Kennon says damage to the beach was not too bad.
Away from the beach, in neighborhoods along canals and beside the bay, damage was worse than what the city suffered in Hurricane Ivan, which hit 16 years to the day earlier.
Five corner units of Tropic Isles condominiums after Hurricane Sally moved through the area, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Orange Beach, AL. Sally made landfall Wednesday near Gulf Shores as a Category 2 storm, pushing a surge of ocean water onto the coast and dumping torrential rain that forecasters said would cause dangerous flooding from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi and well inland in the days ahead.(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
___
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s governor is warning people in the state’s hard-hit panhandle to remain vigilant as Sally heads inland, warning major river flooding could come next.
Gov. Ron DeSantis told a news conference Wednesday afternoon that Sally is dumping heavy rains as it treks inland across the Southeast. He said that is expected to cause massive flooding of several Florida Panhandle rivers in the coming days.
“So this is kind of the initial salvo, but there is going to be more that you’re going to have to contend with,” DeSantis said at an appearance at the state emergency operations center in Tallahassee.
—
MOBILE, Ala. — Rivers have begun to rise from Sally’s heavy rains, and at least eight waterways in south Alabama and the Florida Panhandle are expected to hit major flood stage by Thursday.
Some of the crests could break records, submerge bridges and flood some homes, the National Weather Service warned in a message late Wednesday.
Vehicles maneuver on a flooded road near a boat washed up near the road after Hurricane Sally moved through the area, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Orange Beach, AL. Sally made landfall Wednesday near Gulf Shores, AL, as a Category 2 storm, pushing a surge of ocean water onto the coast and dumping torrential rain that forecasters said would cause dangerous flooding from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi and well inland in the days ahead. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, August 20, 2020
“Ambushed” is how Alabama’s GOP Attorney General Steve Marshall characterized the Department of Justice’s findings of the State of Alabama’s Department of Corrections unconstitutionally inhumane treatment of prisoners.
That came from the weakling former District Attorney whom corrupt GOP former Governor Bentley appointed February 2017 to avoid prosecution.
But perhaps Marshall is correct – that he was ambushed – and for that reason is so utterly inept and incompetent that Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, August 7, 2020
Be very wary of an attorney who says these type things about his client:
“Will is young and is learning some hard lessons. But he’s a very convicted man. He’s very convicted in his faith and he’s very convicted in his character. He’s very convicted in his heritage. And Will’s not a person who’s going to shy away from the tough questions to satisfy folks. And that upsets a lot of people. And I understand that. Especially in these times.
“But Will’s not going to admit to something he didn’t do. And he’s not going to step down from a position that he was elected to that he’s trying to do a good job at just because someone has pointed the finger and tried to make him out to be a bad guy. He’s a fighter. I’d be surprised if he resigns.”
Learning hard lessons…
Convicted – 4 times!…
Heritage – especially if you’re aligned with a White Supremacist group…
Resigns…
When your own attorney uses those words in response to the charges, you gotta’ KNOW that it prolly won’t go well.
So already, things don’t look good for Will Dismukes.
A since-deleted Facebook social media post by Will Dismukes, a White Republican member of the Alabama State House of Representatives, State House District 88, who was at the time, also a Baptist pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, Prattville. Dismukes resigned after 3 days of outcry following discovery of this since-deleted social media post. “Fort Dixie” is the Selma, Alabama, home of Patricia Godwin, a woman with deep ties to the neo-Confederate cause and organized hate.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, July 28, 2020
“It is one thing to honor one’s Southern heritage; however, it is completely another issue to specifically commemorate the leader of an organization with an indisputable history of unconscionable actions and atrocities toward African-Americans.”
Alabama GOP Chair Terry Lathan (RIGHT, in red) with Donald Trump (LEFT)
Terry Lathan is correct – “it is completely another issue to specifically commemorate the leader of an organization with an indisputable history of unconscionable actions and atrocities toward African-Americans.”
But…
Can you smell the hypocrisy cooking?
By officially celebrating as holidays the birthdays of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, the State of Alabama “specifically commemorates the leader[s] of an organization with an indisputable history of unconscionable acts and atrocities toward African-Americans.”
That Madam Chairman Lathan specifically ignores the proverbial “elephant in the room” of racism, strains at the gnat of Will Dismukes, and swallows the camel of state-sponsored endorsement of the institution of slavery is the entire point. Will Dismukes is a gnat on the derriere of the ALGOP. Lathan is its mouthpiece.
Slavery, racism, and discrimination are Alabama’s heritage – a genuine homemade Southern mess. It’s tough to erase history, so they don’t even try. Instead, they embrace it as a lost sheep, welcoming it back into the Confederate fold.
Officially acknowledging Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis is the ULTIMATE act of hypocrisy, and the demonstration of Read the rest of this entry »
Specifically, the state is concerned that they might lose a seat in reapportionment – along with the Federal dollars that accompany it – because of concern that other states might increase their apportionment of the 435 Members of the House of Representatives.
Now, if you think about it, that’s ironic, if not outright hypocritical, because Alabama is a significant recipient of government largess, aka “tax dollars” more so, than they send in. In other words, Alabama is a welfare recipient state. And welfare is something anathema to GOPers.
But it’s not as if Alabama hasn’t been shortchanged before. The “Alabama Paradox,” which interestingly – and, again ironically – is the inversely proportional phenomenon in which a state’s population increases, yet Congressional representation decreases, which was first discovered in 1880 by C. W. Seaton, Chief Clerk of the United States Census Bureau, who calculated apportionments for all House sizes between 275 and 350, and discovered that Alabama would get 8 seats with a House size of 299, but only 7 with a House size of 300. The same phenomenon was discovered to exist with new states admitted to the union (such as with Colorado in 1900), and generally refers to an apportionment scenario in which increasing the number of Representatives would decrease at least one state’s number of representatives in the House.
Mathematically, of course, it’s impossible to have a perfectly equal representation, which was proven in 1983 by two mathematicians, Michel Balinski and Peyton Young, who discovered that any method of apportionment which does not violate the quota rule – being that the number of seats to be allocated should be between the upper or lower roundings of its fractional proportional share – will result in paradoxes whenever there are three or more states. Earlier, in 1980, the Balinski–Young theorem proved that if an apportionment method satisfies the quota rule, it must fail to satisfy some apportionment paradox.
But, determining methods to apportion is getting much too complex, and practically misses the entire point, which is that the Constitution plainly states that ALL people should be counted, and Alabama is claiming that all people should NOT be counted, alleging that illegal aliens constitute an inordinate number of people in the nation.
Again, Alabama has been down that path before with their HB56 law written by Kris Kobach when he was Kansas Secretary of State, which sought to exclude people from legal rights (freedom of movement, etc.) and long-standing protections, based upon their immigration status, which was typically determined by looking at skin color, or surname, and little else. Federal courts have since struck down most of the law.
The wording in the recent Alabama & Mo Brooks v Census Bureau suit states that “plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the Residence Rule is unconstitutional because an apportionment of members of the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes among the states based on population figures which include illegal aliens would violate § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Article I, § 2’s requirement of an “actual Enumeration” of the population of the United States, and Article II, § 1 of the United States Constitution.”
The suit seeks remedy through a rather perverse – and un-Constitutional – means, making accusation that illegal aliens (aka undocumented immigrants, otherwise known as people who are here in violation of immigration law, such as Canadians, who illegally overstayed their visas, which research showed are far more abundant than Hispanics, or Mexicans, and in 2016-17 accounted for at least 93,000 – more than any other nation), and that such contravention is anathema to the purpose of the Census, which states that all people shall be counted, making no differentiation among citizens, and non-citizens… at least none that we now know of – except for the Indian thing (“excluding Indians not taxed”)… and the Three-Fifths Compromise and the 13th Amendment, which still allows slavery, albeit “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
Most recently, on July 21, 2020, the White House wrote a “Memorandum for the Secretary of Commerce” which was entitled “Memorandum on Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census,” and acknowledged in part that, “The Constitution does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base.” That’s interesting, because as they continue down the rabbit hole of their illogic, they conclude with the President having the final say in the Census by writing “The President, by law, makes the final determination regarding the “whole number of persons in each State,” which determines the number of Representatives to be apportioned to each State, and transmits these determinations and accompanying census data to the Congress (2 U.S.C. 2a(a)).”
However, the law which they quote 2 U.S.C. 2a(a) states in pertinent part, that “the President shall transmit to the Congress a statement showing the whole number of persons in each State…” not that the President shall make any changes, or additions.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Alabamians, with their bigoted history of racism and hatred by and through the KKK, take the noose so much for granted that the terror symbol is used even as a garage door pull.
UPDATE, Tuesday, 23 June 2020, 1923 CDT:
Joint Statement from U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp, Jr. Regarding the Noose Found in NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace’s Garage at Talladega Superspeedway
United States Attorney’s Office – Northern District of AL
Department of Justice
“The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019. Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week.”
A Confederate flag is flown from a small personal aircraft over Talladega Superspeedway racetrack in Alabama recently (formerly the “Alabama International Motor Speedway”) following news that the private firm would forbid display of the racist White Supremacist symbol anywhere on their property.
Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., wearing an “I CAN’T BREATHE” Black Lives Matter tee-shirt
Just in the case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few days, weeks, or even months due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19, there’s no need to fear. Simply head on out to your local _(insert store type of choice here)_ store for a lovely coronafest.
Best part?
Masks not included… nor are they required!
However, pointy hooded white robes ARE required in Alabama.
It seems that NASCAR driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. – driver of the legendary No. 43, which was Richard Petty’s car for 1125 of 2000 starts from 1959-1992 – found a noose hanging in the car’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway yesterday (Sunday, June 21, 2020).
An American Civil War era miniature Stars and Bars Confederate battle flag is seen next to a Black Lawn Jockey statue during the 1998 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Die Hard 500 on 26 April 1998 at the Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega, Alabama, United States. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Allsport/Getty Images)
Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. – a Black man, and genuine rarity in motorsports, especially “stock car racing” – debuted in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2017 at Pocono, substituting for the injured Aric Almirola, an American of Cuban descent, and made a total of four starts.
The next year, Richard Petty Motorsports – owner of the legendary Number 43 racecar – named “Bubba” Wallace as the car’s full-time driver in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The Talladega 500, affectionately known as ‘dega to many, is the motorsport’s series fastest track, which until the mandatory installation of restrictor plates, supported speeds of well over 200mph on the “tri-oval” racecourse.
Naturally, everyone’s in a tizzy over the noose, and the Trump administration’s “disgraceful” FBI henchmen (or punching bag, take your pick), are allegedly “investigating,” whatever ~that~ is supposed to mean.
But poor Bubba.
He was born to Black woman.
His daddy is White.
And, the 26-year-old was born in Mobile, Alabama, but grew up in Concord, North Carolina.
So he knows ALL about it.
And so should his parents.
And as far as Alabama is concerned, Black Lives DON’T Matter… regardless of what is plastered on the side of a race car, and regardless of who drives it.
As evidence of Alabama’s long-term and ongoing support of racism – even to this day – consider the following:
This plaque is located on the landing steps of the Alabama State Capitol building in Montgomery, AL; the inscription reads: Placed by SOPHIE BIBB CHAPTER Daughters of the Confederacy on the spot where JEFFERSON DAVIS stood when inaugurated president of C.S.A., Feb. 18, 1861
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, June 18, 2020
The scars of slavery are apparent, and are in this nation everywhere one looks.
Most are plainly evident, some not so much.
It’s like that with mental illness.
It’s not clearly visible from the outside, and that’s because of where the damage has occurred… on the inside – of the brain.
It’s a way of thinking which sets apart mental illness from mental health.
Eventually, of course, the illness is reflected in the behavior, and that includes speech, which is an activity.
Such scars are evident ESPECIALLY and particularly in the South, where Slavery once occurred, and where states seceded from the Union in order to preserve the status quo, rather than change.
The damage is reflected in whom the majority White population votes for, and elects, to rule over them.
Again, it’s NOT plainly visible, but clearly, something IS drastically wrong, and it’s evidenced by poor policy, and bad laws.
Following are excerpts of dialogue with friends about the matter.
To Friend:
“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”
–– U.S. Idiot in Chief Donald J. Trump to Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, June 3, 2020
They might as well have whipped a nigger… right?
That’s the net effect of what they wrote, for it’s certainly no different from anything that ever happened in the South, and the heinously barbarian acts of racism and slavery, which they continue to glorify.
The pseudo righteous indignation of an Alabama group known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans was expressed in a letter posted to their Facebook page recently on the matter of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument in Birmingham, Alabama.
What do those clowns do?
Hold traitor night classes, run around practicing treason against the United States as Confederates, killing and whipping Blacks, advocating for slavery and secession while wearing hooded outfits with pointy hats?
Seriously.
A man identified as Carl Jones, Division Commander (whatever that is, or means) wrote a letter (Oh? They’re literate now?) which bemoaned the “thuggish and lawless attacks on the monument…”
NOTE: Here’s the beginning of a CLASSIC Straw Man Argument.
He claimed to “mourn the untimely and unnecessary death of Mr. George Floyd in Minneapolis,” and to “offer our heartfelt prayers and condolences to his family and loved ones” while neglecting to mention that the statue’s presence was an explicitly continual public reminder, and glorification of slavery. He might as well have mourned the death of Charles Manson, for all the good the “heartfelt prayers and condolences” meant to the Black community, and to others.
See the BIG BLUE TRUCK? Big Blue hauled away Birmingham’s edifice to evil.
His condemnation of “those in Birmingham” (“those” as in “you people”?) whom he falsely claimed had a hand in “the destruction of our hallowed monument” PURPOSELY and COMPLETELY IGNORED the fact that their “hallowed monument” (an onerous obelisk which was enduring evidence as an edifice to evil, and a malingering maleficence) was NOT destroyed, but rather, was gently, carefully, painstakingly, and methodically dismantled bit-by-bit, and piece-by-piece and hauled away on a flatbed trailer truck by the City of Birmingham at the resident citizens’ request.
“The Alabama Monuments Preservation Act provides a singular avenue for enforcement — the filing of a civil complaint in pursuit of a fine, which the Alabama Supreme Court has determined to be a one-time assessment of $25,000. The Act authorizes no additional relief.
“Should the City of Birmingham proceed with the removal of the monument in question, based upon multiple conversations I have had today, city leaders understand I will perform the duties assigned to me by the Act to pursue a new civil complaint against the City.
“In the aftermath of last night’s violent outbreak, I have offered the City of Birmingham the support and resources of my office to restore peace to the City.”
This evening, the City of Birmingham has deployed crews to dismantle and remove the onerous obelisk which has cast the pallor of slavery over the city since its erection in 1905 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Casting the shadowy pall of slavery over the city since 1905 after being gifted to the city by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it has increasingly become a touchstone representing man’s inhumanity to man through the wicked institution in Alabama especially, which was the Capitol of the Confederacy.
And then, there’s an interestingly disturbing corollary to the monument in the park.
Linn Park was not always named “Linn Park.”
First named “Central Park” in 1883 by the the Elyton Land Company’s original plans for Birmingham, as drafted by William Barker, its name was changed to “Capitol Park” in 1886 after it was deeded to the city. Its name was again changed to “Woodrow Wilson Park” in 1918 to honor Wilson as President and for being the spokesman of the terms of peace which concluded World War I.
It was nearly three-quarters of a century later in October 1988 that the name was changed from Woodrow Wilson Park to Linn Park to honor Charles Linn, a Captain in the Confederate States Navy, who later became an industrialist/banker/mercantilist and city founder.
Additional details of the park’s location are enumerated in description of the 1907 historical image of the commemorative obelisk shown below.
Birmingham, Alabama area comedian Jermaine “FunnyMaine” Johnson has for many years helped lead efforts to eradicate the city’s Monument to Maleficence which honors treason against the United States and slavery in the guise of Civil War Confederates, replete with a quote from the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, upon the obelisk’s north face: “THE MANNER OF THEIR DEATH, WAS THE CROWNING GLORY OF THEIR LIVES. JEFFERSON DAVIS.”
Alabama Governess Kay Ivey (R)
Johnson’s and numerous others’ opposition to the city’s durable demonic device is unwavering, and has faced opposition from the state’s mostly White Republican legislators, and White Republican Governor Kay Ivey who signed into law a bill protecting that and other such monuments honoring slavery throughout the state.
The city’s mayor, Randall Woodfin, also a Black gentleman, is similarly unwavering in his opposition to the monument’s presence and all that it represents, and has sought on numerous occasions to have it removed, but has been thwarted by the White-dominated Republican legislature and governor. Numerous court battles have raged, and even wound up in the state’s Supreme Court which found that the greatest penalty the city could face for violation of the law forbidding its removal was a $25,000 fine.
Image circa 1907, of the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument obelisk along with a bronze statue of Dr. William Elias B. Davis, MD an early Birmingham area physician, circa 1887, to the RIGHT. Charles Linn Park (formerly Central Park, Capitol Park, and Woodrow Wilson Park) forms the municipal center of downtown Birmingham, and is and is and is bordered on the north by 8th Avenue North, Boutwell Auditorium and the Birmingham Museum of Art, on the south by Park Place, on the east by Linn-Henley Research Library and the Jefferson County Courthouse, and by 20th Street North and the Birmingham City Hall on the west.
Carol Robinson of the website AL dot com interviewed Jermaine Johnson following a tumultuous night in the Magic City Sunday May 31 in which several unsuccessful attempts to topple the obelisk were made, and in which its inscriptions were marred, chipped, chiseled at and defaced by numerous crowd participants. Most in the city – Black and White – are willing to see it go.
They’re not for Birmingham, they’re not from Birmingham. We know, we were on the ground.
We talked with some of these people. When you have a lot of people from Birmingham, including the police and the mayor, everybody’s out here peaceful because we recognize each other. Everybody’s walking up, ‘Oh we went to Ramsay together, we went to JO together, and here comes a group of people nobody knows and we’re like, ‘Hey what’s up man’ and they’re like ‘We’re not here to talk.’ They were just rude to everybody. They were rude to reporters. They were rude to us.
If you think I incited violence, you don’t think monuments like this and the policies behind it haven’t incited violence for decades, you just need to think again.
I hate it. I hate it. I love my city. I don’t stand for that.
Y’all won’t be able to find not one video where I’m encouraging people to tear down our city. As a matter of fact, you’ll find just the opposite. I literally encouraged people to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 1, 2020
It’s Open Season on Black men and women in America.
Cops kill with impunity.
The Department of Justice (especially under this administration) does nothing.
There is NO justice in this land.
But Fortunately, Open Season on Blacks in America is Closing Soon.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020 marks the day.
That’s the day of the General Election.
And it’s time to vote OUT those with a “R” after their name, and most especially, to clean out the White House and rid it of the infestation of vermin which have afflicted it and this nation for the past 4 years.
George Floyd’s death in Minnesota is just the latest, and hopefully, the last straw – the one that proverbially broke the camel’s back in this miserably shameful and ongoing horror story.
That the POTUS has chosen to NOT address the nation during this crisis speaks volumes, none of which have any good in them.
It wasn’t too long ago that a young man in Alabama who had just entered the United States Army, and was home on leave during Thanksgiving, was shot and killed by the Hoover Police Department at the Riverchase Galleria mall in Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham on November 22, 2018.
The deceased young man was the type of person the NRA holds out as a proverbial exemplar of the “good guy with a gun” character they often tout. The only problem was, that in his case, he was Black. The fact that he was properly licensed to carry a concealed weapon – and did – made no difference.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Opinion writer Kyle Whitmire, who opines for the website AL dot com, recently wrote a damning indictment of the sad state of affairs which continues to be Alabama.
In his regularly-appearing column dated May 17, he wrote in part that three months ago, that “the Alabama Senate passed a resolution recognizing the great looming public health emergency — porn,” and that “State Sen. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, introduced the resolution moments after lawmakers gaveled in, and the Senate passed it easily on a voice vote.”
The vast majority of the state’s legislators in both chambers are Republican.
Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R) defended a plan to spend $200 million on a new Alabama State House but says his caucus is “not in the mood” to expand Medicaid.
He also noted that “More than half of Alabama counties don’t have hospitals where a woman can give birth to a baby.”
Alabama has 67 counties, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that as of July 1, 2019, the state had 4,903,185 residents, 45.2% of which are Read the rest of this entry »
As usual with many reporting outlets, whether official, governmental, or news, there are often important underlying figures omitted, either through carelessness, or willfulness, which give understanding to the greater picture. In this instance, state population, and population percentages were missing.
According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2019, Alabama has an estimated population of 4,903,185, and the Black or African American percentage of that population is 26.8%. Thus, when observing item numbers 1, 6, and 9 citing the percentage of Alabamians tested, and distribution of the disease as being “practically equally affected,” the reality is that because of their minority population status, the Black or African American community is affected more significantly, and disproportionately affected with respect for the total population.
As well, residents aged >65+ constitute 16.9% of the population.
Alabama has a total of 15,330 staffed beds, in 89 hospitals statewide.
1.) Only 3.789% (almost 4%) of all Alabamians have been tested for COVID-19.
2.) Of the 551 related deaths in the state, 34.2448% were hospitalized.
3.) The majority of COVID-19 cases (39.75%, or very nearly 40%), were aged 25-49 – the “prime” of life.
4.) Those aged 65, or over, constituted only 23.67% (almost 24%) of all cases.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 24, 2020
According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama, and various related published stories, 35-year-old Robert Brandon Malone of Prattville, AL plead guilty Tuesday, February 18, 2020 in Federal court to three counts of wire fraud, and one count of transporting a stolen vehicle in a scheme in which he sold cars he did not own.
United States Attorney Louis V. Franklin, Sr., FBI Special Agent in Charge James Jewell, and Prattville Police Chief Mark Thompson made the announcement.
“According to court records, in April of 2017, Malone posted a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck for sale on the advertising website craigslist. However, the truck was actually a trade-in vehicle to the dealership for which he worked at the time. After the post, he was contacted by a potential buyer and represented to him that he was the actual owner. The buyer made the purchase, but returned the vehicle after learning that Malone did not own the truck. Malone did not refund his money.
“Later, in January of 2018, Malone was working on a Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck for someone and was storing it at his shop. Once again, he created a craigslist post listing it for sale although the owner had not given him the authority to do so. A potential buyer contacted Malone and arranged a trade for another vehicle. Once he learned that Malone did not own the truck, it was returned to the rightful owner. However, the vehicle that was traded was not returned.
“Finally, in November of 2018, Malone went to a car dealership in Georgia and was in the process of completing the paperwork to purchase an Audi R8. However, before the purchase was complete, he drove the vehicle off the lot and back to Prattville. He contacted someone that he knew was in the market for an Audi and they drove to Prattville to look at the vehicle. The purchaser gave him a down payment for the car and left his F-150 with Malone to hold temporarily until he could return to pick it up. Malone did not wait for the owner to return, instead, he listed the truck on Instagram and sold it to another individual. Ultimately, the Audi was returned to the dealership and the truck to the Audi purchaser. However, neither victim recovered their losses.”
Now, this is where things get interesting.
Just in the case you’re not aware of it (and I wouldn’t expect 95-98% of readers to be, though I could be surprised), such an activity isn’t illegal on the stock market… per se.
First, let’s review the core facts of the above-mentioned case.
1.) In the first instance, by virtue of his employment, he (Malone) was in possession of a vehicle, which he sold to a willing party. The willing party returned the truck when he discovered that Malone didn’t have title to it, and Malone didn’t refund his money. A case for theft could possibly have been made, but was not, because under Federal law, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, February 23, 2020
Addison McFarland, (LEFT), and Allie Ruth Black, of Clements Key Club, serve stew and soup Friday at the annual Empty Bowls Luncheon at the Revival Center on West Washington Street in Athens, AL. The students donated their time for the event, which raises funds for organizations in Limestone County working to reduce food insecurity.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 20, 2020
Best grits joke I’ve ever heard was about a couple crisscrossing the nation, whose journeys took them to the Deep South.
Having traveled all day, they bedded down in a motel in Evergreen, AL. It’s tiny town, just off and barely east of I-65, and south of Georgiana. Perhaps you know exactly where it is… but chances are you don’t. So, here’s a map link to help you out. Or, if you prefer, here’s a pic.
So the next morning, as they were checking out of the Sleep Inn motel, they asked where they could get breakfast.
“Shoney’s is just down the street,” replied the Desk Clerk. “They have an excellent breakfast buffet that’s to die for!”
The couple thanked her, walked out the door, got in their car, and headed the few hundred feet down to Shoney’s.
As they walked in and were seated, they took a few minutes to look over the menu, and while talking among themselves, the waiter walked up and took their drinks order.
“I’ll be back in a few moments to take your order,” he said as he turned away.
When he arrived at their table, with their orange juice, water, and coffee on a service platter, he started placing their drinks on the table and asked, “Have y’all decided? Our breakfast buffet is always popular, or you can order from the menu, or a la carte.”
Curiously, the couple’s better half replied, “What’s on the breakfast buffet?”
He began naming off the items. “Well, we have cheese & regular grits, oatmeal, 2 types sausage – link & patty – chicken fingers, bacon of course, dirty rice, biscuits, plain & sausage gravy, cantaloupe, strawberries, honeydew, grapes, and cottage cheese.”
“Wow! That sounds like a lot to choose from!,” exclaimed the couple’s better half, as she shut the menu and handed it over to him.
“Yes ma’am, we do our best to have quite a variety of items to offer, and if there’s an item that you want that’s not on there, we’ll do our best to get it for you!” He smiled broadly as he delivered his short dietary soliloquy. The gap in his toothy grin gave the couple a heartwarming, and down-home feeling. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, December 12, 2019
Why is Alabama so lousy, and most Alabamians so stupid?
Because the Republican-dominated legislators continue to destroy education.
They don’t care about the children.
Period.
If they did, they’d put their money where their mouth is.
And, they don’t.
Never again wonder why the state and its residents are poverty-stricken, unhealthy, and as a whole, are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command”… in addition to being Trump voters.
This Is Where Your State Ranks in Education The quality of education still varies widely across the country.
Emily DeRuy, National Journal, January 8, 2016
“Between 2008 and 2014, Louisiana and Alabama both cut higher-education funding by about 40 percent. New York’s funding has only declined 5 percent during that time, making it one of the three states with the smallest cuts.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/this-is-where-your-state-ranks-in-education/458784/
Common Core math ‘eradicated,’ Ivey says, after Alabama school board vote
Alabama is stupid because the legislature is stupid.
And the powerful corporate lobbyists continue pandering to, and getting corporate welfare from, the legislators via corporate tax breaks and other “incentives,” when instead, the legislature should be helping the people, and placing them first, instead of dead last.
The Most — And Least — Educated States In The U.S. In 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/02/01/the-most-and-least-educated-states-in-the-u-s-in-2018/
“As for the U.S. states that ranked at the bottom of the list—the least educated ones—see the list of the lowest-five below.
Alabama (Attainment Rank: 45; Quality Rank: 40)
Arkansas (Attainment Rank: 47; Quality Rank: 34)
Louisiana (Attainment Rank: 48; Quality Rank: 47)
West Virginia (Attainment Rank: 50; Quality Rank: 42)
Mississippi (Attainment Rank: 49; Quality Rank: 50)
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, September 3, 2019
There’s absolutely and utterly no reason for the senseless gun violence and deaths in our nation which have resulted from laxative gun laws.
Period.
Congress has the authority to act, and efforts to protect our people from such predators is hampered by the GOP, especially and particularly in the Senate.
Full stop.
Offers of “thoughts and prayers” will no longer cut it. Besides, “We the people” do NOT elect national prayer leaders, or religious folks for their alleged ability to call down from the heavens acts by the gods and/or goddesses they purport to represent and/or serve… instead of the people who elected them, who are their constituency.
There’s always truth in humor, and often, satirical illustrations serve to explain the problems sometimes much better than actual explanations of the problems at hand. Comedians such as Dave Chappelle – winner of the 2019 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually by the Kennedy Center for the Arts, will be given to him October 27, 2019 – has become renown for his absurdist skits and comedy routines which have included one colloquially known as “The Black White Racist” in which a reporter for Frontline (an actual investigative journalism documentary news show on PBS – see here: https://www.pbs.org/show/frontline/) finds and interviews a blind racist who “has been the leading voice of the White Supremacist movement in America” sequestered in the remote hills of an unnamed rural Southern state.
The skit, recorded when Chappelle was then performing for The Comedy Channel, remains one of his most well-known skits, and may be viewed online here ( ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW):
So, along that line… what if Wal-Mart banned dildos?
Realistically, that idea is not too far-fetched.
Here’s why.
In Alabama, that state’s legislators some years ago – in 1998 – forbade “any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value.” (Code of Alabama 13A-12-200.2)
In 2007, the law was openly mocked by several individuals in the state who challenged its legality on state constitutional grounds, and illustrated its absurdity and invasion of privacy. On September 11, 2009, the state’s Supreme Court ruled against a legal challenge from the owner of a chain of sex toy stores in the state, and the law became settled. And because almost every law has a legal loophole (exception), the Code of Alabama in Section 13A-12-200.4 Affirmative Defenses states that “It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating Sections 13A-12-200.2 and 13A-12-200.3 that the act charged was done for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose.”
But regardless of the law, those items continue to be sold in the state because they’re marketed as novelty or educational items, while garments are sold as costumes. Because the state has refused to enforce the law, the state’s stance amounts to nothing more than hypocrisy. Politicians who run on the GOD ticket have to make themselves look good to their pastoral flock, you know.
Which again, brings us full-circle to absurdity.
What if Wal-Mart banned dildos?
The GOPers in the Congress have taken a passive aggressive stance by refusing to act, which effectively allows deaths from gun violence to proliferate. The mostly-GOP crowd says they’re not going to do anything but offer “thoughts and prayers,” while GOP Senate Majority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell from Kentucky has said he won’t even consider legislation when he made the following remark on a far right-wing extremist talk radio show hosted by Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, September 1, 2019
What the hell!?! Damn!
I was ready to go to bed after wrapping up a blog entry on Joe Biden’s support of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) which was responsible for the “measure that allowed dealers to sell rifles, shotguns and ammunition through the mail, and, eventually, the internet. It limited federal inspections of firearms dealers while allowing them to sell guns at gun shows, which helped them grow in size and popularity. And it made it easier for private collectors to sell guns without obtaining a federal dealers’ license, which would play a role in what later became known as the “Gun Show Loophole.””
First thought that came to my mind was the lead sentence in this entry.
The next thought was, “Ban all guns. The motherfuckers obviously can’t handle them, and don’t need them.”
Then, I thought, “Well… maybe we need to make it more difficult for just anyone and everyone to obtain firearms. Something that’d be ‘Constitutionally-approved.'”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Here are a few thoughts and three points about so-called “fetal heartbeat” bills enacted by AL & a handful of other states:
1.) Our U.S. Constitution does NOT support the notion that a fetus is a person because – and as the Catholic Church has long taught – life begins at birth, NOT conception. AND, the Scripture clearly states that the Almighty breathed the “breath of life” at which point “the man became a living being” into Adam. So we see clearly from that religious text in Judaic scripture (the Genesis account) that breathing is equated with life, not conception.
For if life began at conception, then “personhood” and citizenship is imbued at that moment (of conception).
An example of the current (2000’s) CRBA (Consular Report of Birth Abroad).
What that effectively means, is that a fetus conceived overseas (to an immigrant couple, for example, who later became naturalized American citizens before giving birth), the conceived fetus would be a citizen of wherever it was conceived… EVEN IF the child was delivered/born in the U.S.A. Clearly, that is contrary to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, March 9, 2019
“Border Walk,” by Mark J. Hainds, an Andalusia, Alabama native, documents his journey as the first individual to have trekked along the 1954 miles of the US/Mexico border.
In November 2014, the Research Associate and Research Coordinator with Auburn University and the Longleaf Alliance, resigned his 20-year-plus positions, and took temporary leave of his family, to hike the 1,954 miles of the US/Mexico border.
PBS documented his journey in a full-length feature film named “La Frontera,” which can be viewed for free at the link below:
His book “Border Walk” which describes his journey, was published in March 2018, and in April he authored an article which was published on Daily Kos website (“I Walked the Entire US-Mexico Border”) about his journey which also referenced his book.
He leads that story by writing, “On November 24th, 2017, I became the first person in history to have walked the length of the US-Mexico border.”
His feat was reported by:
• The Houston Chronicle in October 2016 (“A walk along the border: Man traverses Texas-Mexico line for documentary“)
• Vice in October 2016 (“We Talked to the Man Walking the Length of the US-Mexico Border“)
• The Associated Press April 2017 (“Day 14: Fellow border travelers meet, in the middle of nowhere“)
• The San Diego TribuneJuly 2017 (“For 700 miles, hiker kept the border in view, and on his mind“)
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, March 1, 2019
This prospective legislation (linked below) is “…an indication of the overall appetite for progressive policies in the 2020 Democratic primary race.”
And, it’s about damn time!
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders -I
I’m sick & tired of hearing folks say that there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. And face it… if it weren’t for Bernie leading the way last General Election cycle, we very likely wouldn’t be hearing this kind of talk. Seriously.
And, while Sen. Kamala Harris exceeded Bernie’s 2016 fundraising “haul” by raising $1.5M in the first 24 hours following announcement of candidacy, Bernie outdid himself this time by raising $6M in 24 hours. THAT is SIGNIFICANT! And, it says that the number of those who believed in him last time, have increased. Plus, he already has the campaign people and mechanisms in place, whereas others – including Harris – do not.
California Senator Kamala Harris -D
I think it’ll be interesting to see how all this shakes out.
Of course, Joe Biden’s likely to be tossed into the mix, but while polls show he has “favorable” ratings with many, including Republicans, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, February 24, 2019
America could build infrastructure to PREVENT tragedies like this from happening. And by “tragedy,” I mean to refer to the damage done in the wake of such climatological events – REGARDLESS of their causes, whether human-influenced, or not.
We once did build infrastructure, or rather, attempted to, after the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, when nearly 30,000 square miles of land along the lower portion of the Mississippi River was flooded to depths up to 30 feet, and stayed flooded to that extent for well over two months before receding. That natural disaster displaced well over 1.5 million people, and killed thousands directly and indirectly.
After that, Republican POTUS Calvin Coolidge refused to call a Special Session of the then-adjourned Congress, and rather than initiating governmental action, wanted to raise money to facilitate recovery efforts through bake sales, church raffles and private philanthropy, which he also thought should be dealt with at a local level, rather than Federal. It’s NO exaggeration to write that.
Obviously, that approach didn’t work. So Coolidge, who couldn’t be bothered to go and visit the people in the areas devastated, came under significant pressure for his lackadaisical do-nothing attitude, and assigned the task of “doing something” to then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who – though Stanford-educated as an infamously mediocre student who failed all the entrance exams but mathematics – had led food distribution efforts in post-WWI Europe.
Newspapers were not kind to Coolidge, and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (in Mississippi) wrote, “It has been necessary to school President Coolidge day by day a bit more towards the realization of the immensity of the catastrophe.”
The Paducah News-Democrat (in Kentucky) wrote that Coolidge had either “the coldest heart in America or the dullest imagination, and we are about ready to believe he has both.”
The New York Times however, saw things differently only because they were unaffected, and wrote, “Fortunately, there are still some things that can be done without the wisdom of Congress and the all-fathering federal government.”
But the Chicago Tribune thought little of the hare-brained scheme, and instead headlined a story with “Coolidge Backs Gigantic Flood Control Scheme,” while their Editorial Board wrote, “Only the resources and jurisdiction of the federal government can cope with the task of flood control.”
Coolidge’s contempt for government was well-known, and he disparagingly said, “If the federal government were to go out of existence, the common run of people would not detect the difference.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 7, 2019
Emantic Fitzgerald “EJ” Bradford Jr. was shot and killed by a Hoover Police Officer on Thanksgiving night 2018 inside the Riverchase Galleria mall.
The word “vomitorium” describes an exit in a coliseum, and stems from its Latin root word “vomus” which means “to spew forth.”
Spew is what this report does.
And exit is what AL AG Steve Marshall does in regard to this case and matter.
From page 23 of the 24 total pages:
“First, a reasonable person could have assumed that the only person with a gun who was running toward the victim of a shooting that occurred just three seconds earlier fired the shots.”
Right… assailants with guns run TO the scene, just like cops. (sarcasm)
WRONG!
The AG’s report contains an error of the First Order by presuming that ordinary citizens would behave like Law Enforcement Officers (LEO) and run TO the sound of gunfire.
Most folks run AWAY from gunfire.
“A reasonable person” would do similarly.
Which, I suppose, would mean that LEO’s are therefore NOT “reasonable.”
Again, that is contradictory to the AG’s report which presumes that reasonable people run TO the sound of gunfire.
That also makes everyone on the scene who fled, unreasonable.
And on page 8, the report states “The officers engage Bradford, who stands holding a gun and then, unlike others at the scene, runs toward the gunshots.” (emphasis added)
The AG’s claim not only contradicts his later assertion, it does NOT even make logical sense, because Read the rest of this entry »
THIS! is honest-to-goodness COUNTRY🥓BACON!!😋
Warm Southern Breeze 