"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."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, November 11, 2022
Thirteen days after the 2020 election, I had lunch with President Trump. I told him that if his legal challenges came up short, he could simply accept the results, move forward with the transition, and start a political comeback, winning the Senate runoffs in Georgia, the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, and the House and Senate in 2022. Then he could run for president in 2024 and win. He seemed unmoved, even weary: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.”
A common housefly alit and remained for several minutes upon Vice President Mike Pence’s head, Wednesday, October 7, during the 2020 Vice Presidential debate at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, with Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee.
In a Dec. 5 call, the president for the first time mentioned challenging the election results in Congress. By mid-December, the internet was filled with speculation about my role. An irresponsible TV ad by a group calling itself the Lincoln Project suggested that when I presided over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes, it would prove that I knew “it’s over,” and that by doing my constitutional duty, I would be “putting the final nail in the coffin” of the president’s re-election. To my knowledge, it was the first time anyone implied I might be able to change the outcome. It was designed to annoy the president. It worked. During a December cabinet meeting, President Trump told me the ad “looked bad for you.” I replied that it wasn’t true: I had fully supported the legal challenges to the election and would continue to do so.
On Dec. 19, the president mentioned plans for a rally in Washington on Jan. 6. I thought that would be useful to call attention to the proceedings. I had just spoken with a senator about the importance of vetting concerns about the election before Congress and the American people. At the White House on Dec. 21, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan led lawmakers in a discussion about plans to bring objections. I promised that all properly submitted objections would be recognized and fully debated.
On Dec. 23, my family boarded Air Force Two to spend Christmas with friends. As we flew across America, President Trump retweeted an obscure article titled “Operation Pence Card.” It alluded to the theory that if all else failed, I could alter the outcome of the election on Jan. 6. I showed it to Karen, my wife, and rolled my eyes.
Plainclothes United States Capitol Police behind a barricaded door on the Floor of the House of Representatives, aim at an insurrectionist — one of thousands on January 6, 2021 who ransacked and destroyed government property and offices at the U.S. Capitol Building at the oblique request of then-POTUS Donald Trump in his failed conspiracy attempt to remain in power by providing several slates of falsified Electoral College Electors, then inciting violence during the certification process — following his re-election defeat in the November 2020 General Election to the Democratic Party’s nominee, former long-time U.S. Senator, then Vice President, Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, July 27, 2021
“It was an attempted coup that happened that day.”
— Aquilino Gonell, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant partial testimony before the January 6th Select Committee, about the 2021 domestic terrorist attacks upon our nation’s government at the U.S. Capitol.
In their testimony today, Tuesday, 27 July 2021, the U.S. Capitol police have made NO MISTAKE describing what the Trump supporters are who attacked our U.S. Congress at the Capitol Building that day —
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, May 13, 2021
In every story you read about the matter, simply substitute the word “White” for Israel/Israelis, and substitute the word “Black” for Palestine/Palestinians.
It’ll become much more clear.
The scenario in Gaza with the Israelis attacking their own residents, is frankly, a Jewish version of “Jim Crow” laws in America which prevented Blacks from being considered FULL citizens with an EQUAL RIGHT to the land.
Just you think about it.
What if White Americans relegated and segregated Blacks to live in a very tiny, certain area of this land – like, being required to live in Mississippi, and being denied the right to live anywhere else?
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, leader of the far-right Likud party
That’s what Israelis are doing to Palestinians.
“As leader of the right-wing Likud party which has dominated Israel’s national parliamentary government, the 120-member Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a record-breaking uninterrupted 12-year tenure.
“The “left-extreme left” government Netanyahu warns of (adding that it will not survive for more than a day) will include (if it will actually be formed) three right-wing parties (Yamina, New Hope, and Yisrael Beytenu), all three of which consist of both conservative and liberal elements, which together command 20 Knesset seats. It will include two centrist parties, with a slight inclination to the Right (Yesh Atid and Blue and White), and two left-wing parties – the Labor Party and Meretz – neither of which would be counted as “extreme left” anywhere in the democratic world (well, Donald Trump excluded). Yes, and it, too, will require Arab support from the outside.
“As long as Netanyahu remains an actor in Israeli politics, no one can form a government without some form of Arab support – and that, in my opinion, is one of the few positive results from the current situation. The Arabs constitute around 20% of the citizens of Israel, and with all the necessary precautions, not letting them play some sort of role in Israel’s government system is antidemocratic.”
“Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett said on Monday that he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his Likud party can count on his faction’s vote to form a right-wing government.
“The two met at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem shortly after Bennett’s statement. A joint statement said they agreed negotiation teams would continue talks.
“As you may already know, I could’ve already been a prime minister by now,” Bennett said on the matter on Monday. “But, my main objective is to thwart a fifth election round,” he added.”
Ongoing and recently updated research by the RAND Corporation – a nonprofit, nonpartisan, research organization working in the public interest to develop solutions to public policy challenges to improve communities nationally, and worldwide by making them healthier, and more prosperous, safer, and more secure – showed that nationally:
“In 2018, 39,740 individuals in the United States were killed by firearms, making firearm violence the second leading cause of injury death in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], undated).
RAND researcher Dr. Andrew Morral, PhD who is the Senior Behavioral Scientist, and Director of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research there, tweeted recently (April 28) that:
“Why are firearm hospitalizations not correlated with gun ownership in observed state hospitalization data or our estimates? Because they chiefly result from criminal assaults (vs. suicides) and these are not correlated with household gun ownership.”
Why are firearm hospitalizations not correlated with gun ownership in observed state hospitalization data or our estimates? Because they chiefly result from criminal assaults (vs suicides) and these are not correlated with household gun ownership https://t.co/pqVOh9t4bT
This type of research is a phenomenally difficult proposition, and highly complicated undertaking, and the entirety of the paper is spent detailing and explaining their methodology, and sources, because not every state provides information to, or participates in HCUP, the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.
As well, data had to be compared and cross-referenced with other similarly related databases, such as the FBI’s annual UCR – Uniform Crime Report.
And then, they get into the math – the statistical analysis – and explain the formulae used, which then has to be checked with other external mathematical models to determine, and ensure a high level of accuracy. In short, this is not “relaxing reading” by any stretch of the imagination – it is highly technical explanations of phenomenally difficult work, which only indirectly points to the significance of their findings.
HCUP is the Nation’s most comprehensive source of hospital care data, including information on in-patient stays, ambulatory surgery and services visits, and emergency department encounters. HCUP enables Read the rest of this entry »
Steven Simon, an International Relations Professor at Colby College, served on the National Security Council during the Clinton and Obama administrations, including as Senior Director for Counterterrorism.
Jonathan Stevenson, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Managing Editor of Survival, served on the National Security Council as Director for Political-Military Affairs, Middle East and North Africa, from 2011 to 2013.
For all the tragic mass shooting headlines this year, the American gun control debate seems permanently stuck. Last week, nine people were killed by AR-15 fire in Indianapolis; before that, 10 died in Boulder, and eight in Atlanta. Despite the anguish over the past month — and despite a push by President Joe Biden — Congress looks unlikely to take any immediate action.
We share Biden’s view that the level of U.S. gun violence is a “national embarrassment.” But as National Security Council veterans who have specialized in counterterrorism — with direct experience involving far-right American terrorism, burgeoning jihadism, and Northern Irish extremism in the 1990s — we also see a new threat rising, one that has the potential to change the urgency of the debate: the growing, and heavily armed, American militia movement, which made a show of force on January 6.
Armed demonstrators protest outside of the Michigan State Capitol on January 17, 2021 in Lansing. – Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Increasingly, as militias acquire and stockpile weapons, they’re turning guns from a public-health concern into a threat to national security. And it’s possible that if proponents of reform — including advocacy groups, congressional leaders and Biden — began addressing it that way, they’d have a chance of energizing the debate against the National Rifle Association and its allies. Indeed, the shock of the insurrection has increased the political burdens of an NRA in internal disarray and offered a new perspective on the need for significant gun control legislation.
As America learned on January 6, anti-government militia groups are more than willing to jump walls, break doors and disrupt the underpinnings of our democracy. These groups, with transnational ties, also enjoy easy access to high-power, high-capacity, small-caliber semiautomatic weapons—many of which can be converted to fully automatic. The concern isn’t that these weapons will somehow enable militias to challenge the U.S. military on the battlefield, which they certainly will not. It is that they make mass casualty attacks against political or cultural adversaries both easy to carry out, and easy to frame as inspirational events of the kind that mobilize insurrection.
The executive orders Biden issued earlier this month imposing restrictions on gun kits and devices that turn pistols into rifles are marginal safeguards and rather thin gruel overall. But his call for reviving the federal ban on assault weapons is more promising and an acknowledgment that serious action is required. An important additional measure would be more rigorous required background checks. At least one key Republican senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, has expressed openness to working with Biden on a gun bill.
Generating bipartisan consensus for an effective crackdown on firearms will always be difficult. While gun control is now unlikely to lose existing supporters, it is also unlikely to win many new ones. But reframing the issue as a national security imperative could galvanize passive backers now focused by the assault on the Capitol on maintaining political stability in the United States. A plausible objective would be to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Think you need a gun “for protection”?
Think again.
The glibly superficial “good guy with a gun” notion is but a trite and specious fallacy.
Research has shown that “that individuals in possession of a gun are over four times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession.”¹
Thus, while gun carrying itself is not a violent behavior, “it potentially marks heightened risk among gun carriers.”
And indeed, “research has demonstrated a strong link between (gun carrying) and gun violence victimization.”¹
“The finding has important implications for states and campuses considering open carry laws α while these policies may be intended to increase safety, they may have the unintended result of increasing gun violence victimization.”²
“On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault.³ Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, April 10, 2021
A gun in every pocket.
Not a chicken in every pot.
No pot there, either.
Not even medical.
The state wants people to kill each other.
But not in the womb.
That’d be wrong.
Shooting people to kill them, is A-OK.
Shooting pregnant women is not.
Might harm the unborn, you know.
Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed NRA-written legislation that allows any adult aged 21, or older, to carry a handgun either openly, or concealed without any special training, education, or permit. Active duty Military Service Members aged 18 to 21 are excepted.
Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the state, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, have told the Governor that they thought his idea was poor policy, but he ignored them, and signed into law a bill that removes restrictions on carrying firearms, either concealed, or openly.
Despite law enforcement’s opposition to his legislation that would end gun permits in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee told a gathering from the National Rifle Association that his legislation would “make Tennessee safer.” However, he failed to mention how it would.
A spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told a Senate committee, “The bureau has been consistent [in opposition] on this from a public safety standpoint.” The TBI and Tennessee Sheriff’s Association oppose eliminating requirements for concealed carry gun permits.
Governor Lee’s Press Secretary Casey Black said, “The ‘Constitutional Carry’ legislation is a key priority in the governor’s public safety package, which is focused on protecting law-abiding Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights, while also significantly increasing penalties for criminals who steal firearms.”
“The mob assault on the U.S. Capitol was predictable. Fortunately, democracy held. But security failed spectacularly.
“In short, the failure of planning is incomprehensible. We’re lucky this wasn’t a massacre. The intruders could’ve taken elected officials hostage; it was only in October that the FBI thwarted a plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
“January 6th is now a day to be remembered on the calendar of violent resistance to the federal government. Emerging from the deadly debacle are diehards whose fantasies of a stolen election are still being fueled.
“These extremists could now be emboldened by their successful confrontation last week. A continuing deep sense of injury coupled with an unrealistic assessment of their own power is always a bad combination.
“Defiance is not easily put back in the box. The siege may cause some previously inflammatory politicians to sober up. But to the rioters, any weak denunciations by such politicians may only feed their sense of betrayal and harden their resolve.
“Extremist activity during the inauguration or the SOTU address is possible in the near term. But I worry more about terrorist plots by right-wing extremists over the horizon.”
Domestic Violent Extremists Will Be Harder To Combat Than Homegrown Jihadists
Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Adviser to the RAND President, Michael D. Rich.
By Brian Michael Jenkins
01/31/21 05:00 PM EST
Brian Michael Jenkins is a Senior Adviser to the President of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He is a former Captain in the Green Berets, initiated RAND’s Terrorism Research program in 1972 and has been researching terrorism for RAND since. He is a Fulbright Fellow, University of San Carlos in Guatemala, has served in several administrations in various capacities related to security and terrorism, authored numerous books, articles, and reports published worldwide, and is a Vietnam Veteran.
The Biden administration has said it will take steps to combat domestic violent extremism. While the move comes close on the heels of the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building, the nation has witnessed recent acts of violence stemming from both far left and far right extremists.
The announced actions – conducting a comprehensive threat assessment, coordinating intelligence sharing, disrupting networks, trying to prevent radicalization – might have a familiar ring. They’re similar to the post-9/11 response to thwart terrorist attacks launched from abroad, and later, homegrown jihadists, which have been largely successful. While these are solid steps, for a variety of reasons shutting down domestic extremists will prove far more difficult than combating homegrown jihadists.
Larger constituencies.
Jihadist ideology, with few exceptions, gained very little traction in America’s Muslim communities. In contrast, the beliefs driving today’s domestic extremists are deeply rooted in American history and society. Precisely for that reason, some law enforcement officials argue against coming down too hard on those involved in the 1/6 assault, perhaps fearing that doing so might provoke the kind of bloody confrontations witnessed in the early 1990s.
The jihadists never had a supportive constituency in the U.S. They responded as individuals to exhortations from groups abroad. Indeed, many of the tips that led to arrests reportedly came from within the Muslim community. There were no continuing terrorist campaigns. Plots and attacks were one-offs. But domestic extremists have a sympathetic base.
Domestic extremists are better organized.
Hindered by FBI infiltration, far right extremists long ago adopted a strategy of “leaderless resistance,” avoiding a hierarchical structure and instead relying on local autonomous cells to carry out attacks on behalf of the cause. What is new about today’s domestic extremists is Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 7, 2021
U.S. Capitol Police in plain clothes stand behind barricaded doors to the House floor and draw pistols upon Trump 2020 mobsters who violently invaded the U.S. Capitol Building, Wednesday, January 6, 2021 during the Constitutionally-ordered tallying of the states’ certified Electoral College votes.
The shocking events that unfolded yesterday in our nation’s capitol – rioting thugs, marauders, and hooligans who violently overthrew and violently invaded our Nation’s Capitol building complex thereby participating in insurrection after being egged on by their losing candidate, the soon-to-be-former President Trump – are unprecedented. Not since the War of 1812 when British soldiers breached and burned our nation’s capitol has the capitol been invaded. The sad part is, that it was brought about EXCLUSIVELY by a Lying, Lawless and Treasonous American President – Trump – whom the GOP has coddled and cultivated.
Again, yesterday’s domestic terroristic events were brought about exclusively by President Trump, who has consistently falsely asserted that he “won” the 2020 General Election, despite numerous Read the rest of this entry »
Many people have used the word “fascist” to describe Donald Trump over the past few years. I was not one of them—until Monday night, when Trump openly defended and endorsed violence by his supporters.
First, Trump shockingly defended his 17-year-old supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who drove across state lines into Wisconsin where he illegally carried a weapon in the streets of Kenosha and then shot and killed two people. (Criminal charges filed against Rittenhouse include first-degree intentional homicide and illegal possession of a deadly weapon.)
Then Trump backed his supporters who on Saturday descended in a caravan of cars on Portland, Oregon, where they were seen shooting projectiles such as paintballs and pepper spray at people in the street. Trump defended this criminal conduct as a “peaceful protest,” arguing that “paint is not bullets.” In reality, shooting people with paintballs is a crime—we all know that. It could blind a person or worse. Yet Trump defends it because the people engaged in this violence were on Team Trump.
We have now entered a new reality in America where Trump, like fascists before, is embracing violence to remain in power. Let’s be clear about what fascism is. As Madeleine Albright explained while discussing her 2018 book, Fascism: A Warning,
“Fascism is not an ideology; it’s a process for taking and holding power.”
She added that “what differentiates fascism from other ideological movements is the use of violence and anger to achieve political ends.” Hammering that point home, Albright back in early 2019 used a line that sums up Trump today:
“Fascism involves the endorsement and use of violence to achieve political goals and stay in power.”
While Trump has embraced other methods used by fascists before—such as pitting Americans against one another to incite anger—that has been Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 14, 2020
Opportunistic White Supremacists Seek To Blame Blacks With Arson, Rioting & Violence Following Rayshard Brooks Death in Atlanta
Much (the exceeding majority) of violence which we have witnessed recently – riots, looting, arson, etc. – following George Floyd’s death has been, and continued to be perpetrated by opportunistic White Supremacists who hope that blame for the violence will fall squarely upon the Black community. Such racist individuals are hoping for a “booglaloo,” which is the term they use to describe a race war.
These images were quickly posted to Social Media and appear to show a White whom is an arson suspect in the torching of the Wendy’s restaurant at 125 University Avenue in Atlanta.
In almost every event in which violence, mayhem, and destruction has occurred recently following the police homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it was started by White people.
Fortunately, however, the ubiquity of high-quality video in cell phones in conjunction with abundant use of Social Media has thwarted their hoped-for efforts.
In Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct, the Twitter video of a man dressed head-to-toe in black, including boots, gloves, hood, and gas mask with purple respirators, complete with a black umbrella – colloquially known as “Umbrella Man” – who used a hammer to methodically break windows of the Auto Zone store there, was of a White man.
In fact, that was the VERY FIRST incidence of such destructive mayhem which started all the violence which then spread nationwide.
“Umbrella Man” was accosted by a young Black man who wore a pink shirt and shorts (colloquially known as “Pizza Man” b/c he was carrying a pizza box), who asked him why he was smashing the windows. The masked White man in black said nothing, turned toward the cellphone videographer and “Pizza Man” as if to threaten them, then turned and walked off.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 8, 2020
There’s been much “water under the bridge” in the last 50 years, or so.
Like it, or not, America has changed.
And frankly, not all change is good. Not all change is for the better. And we all recognize that fact, whether we voted, and voted for Trump, or someone else.
That’s a common unifier among us all regardless of what political affiliation – if any – we may have. We know that change has come, and some of it hasn’t produced the good it was purported to bring about.
Some of the change has been oblique, some of it has been blatant, some of it may have been justified, and some of it may have been a handout, or a head on a silver platter as a political favor.
Again, not all change is good, nor has all change been good. But neither is it all bad.
Change is necessary. We change diapers on babies regularly, and (should) change politicians regularly for the same reason – when they’re full of poop, they’re stinky, and dirty, and if left in place too long, will irritate the skin, and lead to infection.
In an interview article entitled “How Much Do We Need The Police?” by Leah Donnella, published June 6, 2020 on the NPR website, she spoke with Dr. Alex S. Vitale, PhD, Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, and is a Visiting Professor at London Southbank University. For the past 25 years, he has consulted with police departments and international human rights organizations, served on numerous boards, conducted research, and authored numerous books, scholarly articles, and articles of public interest on matters of law enforcement.
In the interview, his observations were not merely prescient, but keen, some of which were, quite frankly, obvious – although at the time, we may not have noticed what would have occurred. But after problems did begin to emerge, we did nothing.
It’s the “Frosted Lucky Charms” mindset – thinking that if we do nothing, it’ll all be “magically delicious,” or miraculously go away… like the POTUS said of COVID-19 at a New Hampshire rally, February 10, 2020 when he said in part, that, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
And now, as the saying goes, “the chickens have come home to roost.”
The fruit borne of the changes which have been made in many matters that do NOT pertain to police, that do NOT pertain to law enforcement, that do NOT require law enforcement intervention, that are merely either civil, health, or social matters, have been unfairly and unjustly thrust upon police whom have been tasked with responding to them.
In a very real way, they’ve been unjustifiably overburdened, and have by default, commanded to do many things OUTSIDE the scope of law enforcement. It’d be like asking a groundskeeper to also be a nanny. It’s also patently and preposterously absurd.
Though she mentioned a couple of her senatorial colleagues by name, she didn’t mention if the idea was exclusive or joint to the Senate, and/or the House.
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 Saturday, May 30, 2020
When I think about all those sissified wanna-be “macho men” White boys in Michigan and other places running around with their assault rifles hanging off them like penises in a porno movie talking all kinds of shit, that 2A is supposed to protect us from an oppressive government, etc…
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, November 25, 2018
SHOTS FIRED!
Black Man With A Gun!
Birmingham, AL metro area showing Hoover, south of Birmingham, and the Riverchase Galleria mall, south of Hoover.
“They took out the threat. Our plan works.”
– Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis describing how uniformed HPD LEOs killed Emantic Fitzgerald “EJ” Bradford, Jr.
It was a Black Friday in more ways than one.
Gunfire erupted late Thanksgiving night around 10PM Central Standard Time in Hoover, Alabama, a small suburb south of Birmingham and part of the Greater Birmingham Metro Area.
It was Black Friday eve at Riverchase Galleria – the state’s largest shopping mall – where holiday shoppers where amassed for huge sales and deep discounts at local and national retailers, many of whom have had a presence there for the over 30 years its been a Jefferson County jolly green sales tax giant.
“The Threat,” Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr., has been neutralized. “Our Plan works,” said Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis.
A 21-year-old Black man identified as Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., of Hueytown, AL, was observed fleeing the shooting scene while brandishing a handgun, was engaged, shot and killed by a uniformed Hoover police officer, according to Hoover Police Captain Gregg Rector.
Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis, said, “Thank God we had our officers very close. They heard the gunfire, they engaged the subject, and they took out the threat. That threat could have materialized into a lot more people being injured. Thank goodness that did not happen. We have a plan and our plan works.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, April 15, 2018
Ending gun violence neither requires repealing the 2nd Amendment, writing entirely new legislation, nor doing nothing – as is being now done, no matter how seemingly well intentioned. With minor modifications to existing law as language additions, almost all interested parties are satisfied – not all, but many, if not most – concerns are addressed in a rational, reasonable, lawful, Constitutional, and commonsensical legislative process that also minimizes taxpayer burden.
Opinions run the gamut, from one extreme, including repeal of the Second Amendment – by former SCOTUS Justice John Paul Stevens, a Republican and Ford appointee – to the other, from arming teachers, to wholesale abandonment of all existing firearm law.
But rarely, if ever, is there any commonsensical solution ever made on settling on any problem with rational, reasonable, logical compromise that achieves most all goals, within reason, and with very slight compromise to all interested parties.
My conservative friends think me liberal, while my liberal friends think me conservative, and both are wrong.
The “Me Too” meme is, in large part, a response to recent revelations of Hollywood Motion Picture/Television Producer Harvey Weinstein’s longtime sexual abuse of women, in close succession to, and conjunction with revelations of similar long-term abuse by late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, comedian Bill Cosby who is accused of chronic use of “date rapedrugs“ on women, and former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY, 9) who plead guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor for “sexting” (sending sexually explicit images, aka “dick pics”) to a 15-year-old girl with whom he connected via Twitter.
Women decided to show the world how many of them have been victimized sexually.
Men have also been sexually abused – as adults and as children – just like women.
However, sexual abuse just happens to be more prevalent among women.
Sexual abuse is a crime, regardless of to whom it happens, regardless of age.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, July 17, 2017
One glance at the daily news reminds us: It’s a cold, cruel world out there. Innocence is slaughtered every day. The harshness of the world can make us tough, self-protecting, and cold at the center: “Not my job. Not my problem.” But the violence of our generation really is our problem, and the job of responding to it Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Update: Saturday, 20 February 2021 NOTE: TO THE READER: As you read any story mentioning, involving or written by Donald V. Watkins, Sr., it must be borne in mind that he is now a Federal Convict, and along with his son, Donald V. Watkins, Jr., was found guilty of numerous charges. “Donald Watkins Sr. was convicted of seven counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy. Donald Watkins Jr. was convicted of one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.” As of the date of this note, he is in Federal Custody at Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center, an administrative security facility, having been relocated away from the minimum security Federal Prison Camp on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
Here also is the SUPERSEDING INDICTMENT dated December 2018 entitled as:
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA SOUTHERN DIVISION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DONALD V. WATKINS, SR. and DONALD V. WATKINS, JR. – 2:18-cr-166-KOB-TMP https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1116081/download
My name is Donald V. Watkins. To my knowledge, we have never met. The unfortunate incident that happened to Megan Rondini at your home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on the night of July 1, 2015, has brought us together.
You got to know Megan in life, at least on that one night in July when you admitted to having sex with her. I have only gotten to know Megan in death.
I am a trial lawyer and investigative journalist. I usually work on the difficult cases most prosecutors are afraid to touch, or on exposing the cases where prosecutors have “fixed” the outcome for the benefit of rich and powerful people.
I am very familiar with how some law enforcement investigators and prosecutors “fix” cases for the oligarchy that runs Alabama. I have seen this type of prosecutorial misconduct occur throughout my 44-year legal career. I also understand how prosecutors sometimes use the grand jury system as cover for their unwillingness to prosecute rich and powerful people. Whether a case is indicted or not often depends upon the socio-economic status of the parties involved and how a prosecutor presents the evidence and applicable law to grand jurors.
I understand sexual assault cases in Alabama (and elsewhere). To me, a sexual assault is not just a sex crime; it is an act of violence against the victim. In many cases, the deck is already stacked against female victims of sexual assaults by the very nature of our male dominated world of law enforcement.
One version of the “truth” in Megan’s case resulted in her allegations of sexual assault against you going away. Former Tuscaloosa District Attorney Lyn Head reportedly presented Megan’s sexual assault case to a Tuscaloosa County grand jury several weeks after her February 26, 2016, death and that body took no action against you.
Today, Megan is dead and you are walking around free. The criminal justice system in Tuscaloosa worked well for you. The same system failed Megan miserably.
My job is to find and report the whole truth in Megan’s case. I have been doing this kind of work for a long time.
You may be familiar with some of my most recent work. In 2014, I discovered and reported the shocking truth about the wife-beating conduct and marital infidelity involving Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 21, 2015
“If you need to carry a gun in church, His Grace is NOT sufficient, and stop pretending you believe that it is.”
Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler has – like many Alabama politicians – stuck his big flat foot into his gaping stupid mouth… again.
This time, he’s on record as saying that, “Church attendees should pack. Each church should have a vigilance committee of individuals who pack and who develop their own plans for defense from an attack. Calling 911 and waiting for government defense will not work. Without armed citizens in the church congregation, they are sitting ducks for criminals and terrorists.”
Late night Tweet by Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, which, as one respondent wrote, “I’ll attribute this to tequila shots.”
Until he was elected to the office of State Auditor, Jim Zeigler was merely a laughingstock and perennial candidate for various state-level offices having campaigned six times, whose Read the rest of this entry »
Perceiving that that those political ideologues were very likely drumming up support for their positions based upon pure emotion and fear, rather than reasoned, rational and informed debate, I initially responded by quickly writing a somewhat sarcastic response, precisely worded to give pause for thought. My initial response elicited a query, to which I delightfully replied more eruditely.
The exchange as it exists presently, now follows.
• Me: Yeah. Alabama was wrong on their right to segregation and their right to deny civil rights, too.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, January 22, 2011
UPDATE 25July2014: See additional story following.
Here’s another chapter in our quickly growing book, “News of the Weird.”
No violence of any kind is genuinely funny. Rather, it is instead, genuinely tragic. And yet, it seems this woman – and her husband – were unstable, at least mentally. The story indicates that “Holly Lahti was arrested and charged with battery in 2003 in Kootenai County, but the prosecutor eventually dismissed the charges. Her husband was arrested on the same charge the same day, and those charges were also dismissed.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, February 17, 2010
“I am Dr. Amy Bishop!”
The IHOP iBitch!
“Biitch! Gimme that last highchair!”
Yet more weirdness from the UAHbomber!
Biology department-member-on-her-way-out, Dr. Amy Bishop, PhD, whom shot and killed three colleagues, wounding thee others during a faculty meeting, was charged with assault, battery and disorderly conduct in 2003.
Warm Southern Breeze 