Alabama
updated
5:31 p.m.
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Get ready to have your stomach turned. In spite of the fact that Jesus had this to say about homosexuality: "_____, " that's not enough for those who use religion as a weapon instead as a guide for living a better life. At least one church in North Alabama passed out a literal piece of crap on Sunday. Not only is the theology inaccurate - the author can't even spell the Presi...
Left in Alabama - 11:42 a.m. - 11 clicks 
Hundreds of immigration rights supporters will be bearing witness today as the Alabama Senate tries to make a bad law even worse. Today is the last day of the Legislature's regular session and, barring a special session, it's the last chance this year for legislators to end Alabama's disgrace , the Beason-Hammon immigration law. Or, as the NYT puts it ... Alabamians ...
Left in Alabama - 6:33 a.m. - 9 clicks
I consider myself a law abiding citizen who has never intentionally broken any laws, so you can imagine my surprise when I attempted to renew my Alabama drivers license to learn they were suspended. What?! When?! Why?! The nice clerk at the Court House asked me if I had any unpaid traffic tickets? I said not to my knowledge. She informed me I would have to go the...
Redeye's Front Page - Tue 12:27 p.m. - 16 clicks
Florida Governor Rick Scott The chief of staff for Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott has stepped down amid allegations that he steered no-bid contracts to friends . Steve MacNamara must have been in the wrong place, at the wrong time. If MacNamara had served under Bob Riley, Alabama's GOP governor from 2003-2011, he would have been promoted. The Riley administration, accordi...
Legal Schnauzer - Tue 4:23 a.m. - 14 clicks
Former State Sen. Lowell Barron has $464,000 in his campaign account . Thanks to Republican "reforms" he can't spend it on much of anything ... except running for office, himself. In the Republican wave of 2010 Barron lost by 500 votes to Shadrack McGill , possibly the least bright Republican among a flock of not very bright GOPers swept into office two years ago. Up i...
Left in Alabama - Mon 3:52 p.m. - 14 clicks
U.S. Congressman Mo Brooks' Fifth District is the home of NASA's Marshal Space Fiight Center. (in Huntsville) It is critical to the entire Tennessee Valley for our representative to fight tooth & nail in Washington to keep MSFC afloat. NASA has made it quite clear, again and again ,that they agree climate change is real and caused by our fossil fuel usage and can...
Left in Alabama - Mon 3:03 p.m. - 14 clicks
A funny thing happened on the way to the governor's office. House Speaker Mike Hubbard stopped listening to animal welfare folks and started dancing to the tune of a small group of Alabama veterinarians - the newly formed "Alabama Veterinary Clinics Owners Association." This group was formed because of frustration with the Alabama Veterinary Association, which worked with bill prop...
Left in Alabama - Mon 11:52 a.m. - 14 clicks
So you thought Republicans were going to be better than the Democrats who controlled the Alabama Legislature for 136 years? You believed their promises to be more ethical, more open, more fair? You must feel like a chump after two years of Republican rule in Montgomery, especially if you're following the reapportionment -- or redistricting -- process. Republicans are obviously p...
Left in Alabama - Mon 8:05 a.m. - 13 clicks
Joel Dubina The chief judge of the U.S. Eleventh Circuit is ignoring overwhelming evidence that one of his trial-court brethren is acting corruptly in my employment lawsuit against the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). This will not come as a surprise to regular Legal Schnauzer readers. In both the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor criminal prosecutions, we've shown that ap...
Legal Schnauzer - Mon 6:26 a.m. - 14 clicks
“Natural gas prices are lower than they have been in 10 years,” Lathem said. “Producers are deciding whether to shut wells down because it’s costing them more to pump it than what they’d get back from selling it.” Anniston Star While I have every sympathy for cash strapped Alabama communities, it stops short of allowing the Feds to sell off public land ...
Left in Alabama - Sun 5:51 p.m. - 14 clicks
We were truly blessed here in Alabama last month. Our tornado count was zero. But don't let local right-wingers fool you into believing climate change is over. The national tally for April was 228 . (73 above the average of 155) 122 of them occurred on April 14th in an outbreak that stretched from Oklahoma to Iowa (with Kansas receiving the brunt of the action) The definit...
Left in Alabama - Sat 2:48 p.m. - 12 clicks
What if the Security Officer forces parent to stop recording Huntsville board meeting issue is being used as a media enabled weapon of mass distraction from the fact HCS superintendent Casey Wardynski used a photo of a young man wearing a hoodie to justify a building a $600,000 fence around, and installing a guard shack, I mean welcome center at the new pri...
Redeye's Front Page - Fri 2:46 p.m. - 17 clicks
We lost a quiet American hero on Tuesday when former AG Nicholas Katzenbach died at the age of 90. He lived an extraordinary life and was an unsung hero of the Civil Rights movement. Katzenbach faced down George Wallace, helped enroll James Meredith in MS, clashed with J. Edgar Hoover over wiretapping MLK, and tried to extricate the US from Vietnam. He didn't do this for persona...
Left in Alabama - Fri 2:03 p.m. - 19 clicks
My partner and I were recently Skyping with his dad and his stepmom, who previously lived in southern Missouri. They're good, fairly average Southern folks who are closing in on retirement. She's a contractor for the military and he was a small-holdings farmer before he retired and they moved to southern Alabama. Politically they come across on the conservative side of the middle. As my partne...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Fri 12:32 p.m. - 15 clicks
Michelle Rhee (Hyungwon Kang/Reuters) There's good news for public education in Alabama and Connecticut, as the Michelle Rhee breed of privatizers and corporate reformers were thwarted in both states, at least partially and at least for now. In Alabama , "a radical, far-reaching charter bill that would have allowed wholesale privatization of public education in the state" was declared de...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Fri 12:32 p.m. - 23 clicks
Sen. Billy Beasley's motion to outright repeal Alabama's HB56 immigration law failed in the Senate yesterday. The vote was 14 to 20. All 20 "No" votes came from Republicans. Independent Senator Harri Ann Smith voted "Yes," as did Republican Gerald Dial. Every Democrat voted for Repeal. In addition, Senator Scott Beason (one of the original authors of HB56) unv...
Left in Alabama - Fri 9:52 a.m. - 19 clicks
Michael Wayne Wooten A 61-year-old Alabama man received a 30-year prison sentence this week after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. The case reportedly also involved instances of child sexual abuse Michael Wayne Wooten, of Alabaster, is a former Birmingham police officer and substitute bus driver in Shelby County. Wooten pleaded guilty in January to one count of prod...
Legal Schnauzer - Fri 4:22 a.m. - 16 clicks
Huntsville City Schools Chief of Security Al Lankford (L) with Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Casey Wardynski (R) at Lee High School student protes t Blame it on the black guy . This is the prevailing sentiment from some of the comments on al.com in response to reporter Crystal Bonvillians' head line, Security office...
Redeye's Front Page - Thu 9:09 a.m. - 17 clicks
By Wendy Sefsaf While eyes remain fixed on the Alabama legislature’s effort to revise their immigration enforcement law, HB 56, the U.S. Department of Justice informed state officials in a letter last week that the state’s immigration law has resulted in significantly higher absence rates among Latino students. According to the letter , more than 13 percent of Latino schoolchildren in Ala...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Thu 8:05 a.m. - 11 clicks
Ted Rollins North Carolina has an unusually complex set of assault laws, covering dozens of varieties of assaults, with four levels of misdemeanors and 10 levels of felonies. By comparison, Alabama assault law is a model of simplicity . But it doesn't take much research into North Carolina's byzantine criminal system to realize this: Someone cut Ted Rollins major slack when he wa...
Legal Schnauzer - Thu 5:31 a.m. - 17 clicks
Don Siegelman John-Alex Romano is the government lawyer who wrote a brief filed this month that opposes U.S. Supreme Court review of the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama. That, in itself, is not newsworthy. But when you consider that Romano is married to Caroline Gary Romano, chief of staff in the U.S. Department of Interior . . . well, the plot begins to thicken. It gets re...
Legal Schnauzer - May 9 - 17 clicks
Huntsville City School Security Chief Al Lankford (L) Huntsville City School Superintendent Casey Wardynski (R) Here We Go Again The Huntsville School board claims to be intimidate d by the people they are supposed to serve , the parents/tax payers. The only time they want parental involvement is when certain parents agree with them . Parents who ...
Redeye's Front Page - May 8 - 7 clicks
Hunting-Club land in Lowndes County, Alabama A federal judge improperly dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Alabama lawyers and judges conspired through a hunting club to fix divorce cases in Jefferson County. The unlawful dismissal meant plaintiffs were not allowed to conduct discovery in order to prove their case. That indicates the federal judiciary is deeply invested in hiding...
Legal Schnauzer - May 8 - 6 clicks
The Orkin Man We've established that Ted Rollins, the CEO of Campus Crest Communities, has built a business career on a foundation of dubious ethics. And some of his most despicable acts have heaped damage on individuals who now live in Alabama. Rollins has made a company "disappear" and engaged in blatant perjury --both in an apparent effort to significantly reduce his family-s...
Legal Schnauzer - May 7 - 4 clicks
It's 5:15 am in Alabama. I'm on I-65 headed to Montgomery for a day spent with my cousin that I never get to see because she lives in Virginia, and is only in town for one more day. The blessings that have come my way this day are all due to a blue light under a seat in front of me. I am blogging while riding on a Greyhound Bus from Mobile to Montgomery. Going by bus wasn't my first choice. I ...
DailyKos (Alabama) - May 6 - 4 clicks
Daniel M. Acker Jr. A retired teacher from Alabaster, Alabama, pleaded guilty to eight counts of child sexual abuse yesterday in Shelby County Circuit Court. Daniel M. Acker Jr. received prison sentences that will be served concurrently over 17 years. Acker was arrested in January after admitting that he had molested more than 20 girls over his 25-year teaching career. Allegati...
Legal Schnauzer - May 4
We continue to receive communications from readers that indicate they are baffled about the death of Pelham, Alabama, attorney Chace Swatek. That's understandable because, according to a spokesman, the Pelham Police Department remains baffled as to why a 35-year-old lawyer who seemed to be in good health wound up dead behind a stack of water pipes near a busy intersection in Shelby County. We d...
Legal Schnauzer - May 4
New Woman All Women in Birmingham Alabama is the abortion clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph in 1998 resulting in the death of a police officer and the maiming of a nurse. It has now been "bombed" by the Alabama Department of Public Health under the direction presumably of anti-abortion Governor Robert J. Bentley , a Dermatologist. In February, the clinic transferred 2 patients to...
DailyKos (Alabama) - May 2
Judge William M. Acker Jr. and Stanford Professor Jack Rakove We explained in a post last week how U.S. District Judge William M. Acker Jr. cheated me in a federal lawsuit over my unlawful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). But you don't have to take my word for it; Acker's own words prove the point. Acker is an 84-year-old Ronald Reagan appointee,...
Legal Schnauzer - May 1
Edmund C. McGarity When Mike McGarity became our new next-door neighbor in December 1998, my wife and I only needed a few encounters with him to have this burning question: "Where in the hell did this guy come from?" Having lived in Alabama for 30-plus years, I've gotten used to Southern accents and even have come to find some of them charming. But McGarity has the kind of backwood...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 30
Ted Rollins grew up in the family that owns Orkin Pest Control, so you might think that his student-housing complexes would be relatively bug free. But you would be wrong. Students who live at The Grove apartments on the University of South Alabama campus say they have been overun with roaches for months. And students say officials with Campus Crest Communities, the company that has built a...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 26
The nation's biggest health-insurance story at the moment probably revolves around the U.S. Supreme Court deliberations on the fate of Obamacare. But a lawsuit filed recently in the Northern District of Alabama could prove to have a major impact in its own right. A case styled Fred R. Richards, et al v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, et al alleges that 38 Blue Cross companies...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 25
Mike McGarity Homewood High School The courtroom misery that my wife and I have experienced, on the surface, seems like a story of legal intrigue. But upon closer inspection, you find what Hollywood might call a "psychological thriller." That's because Mike McGarity, the troublesome neighbor who initiated our law-related headaches, comes from a background of intense family dysfuncti...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 23
David Bronner Since the Republican takeover of the Alabama Legislature in the 2010 elections, we've seen signs that GOPers are trying to get their grimy hands on the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) and the some $32 billion that it manages. First, came introduction of two GOP-backed bills that would have given politicians more control over RSA. Then came news that Leura Can...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 23
Chace Swatek and his sister, actress Barret Swatek Alabama lawyer Chace Swatek died while in the midst of a two-mile roundtrip walk to a drugstore, according to details released by the Pelham Police Department. The cause of death remains undetermined, pending results of a toxicology report that is expected to take six months to a year . Swatek's body was discovered on February 15...
Legal Schnauzer - Apr 18
And therein lies the problem within the Alabama Democratic Party (cue in Dix ie ). There are two separate but unequal Elephants waging a civil war under the big tent, with the white Elephants trying to figure out h ow they can rise again without the black Elephants, especially those who stood up and made a difference . Minority means "black" and nothing else to certain people ...
Redeye's Front Page - Apr 17
Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Dr. Joe Reed, Alabama State Senator Hanks Sanders and others who fight for justice must know this scripture from Matthew 5:10; 13:20-21 by heart because I think about it whenever I read comments like these; Don't lose hope. Joe reed, Hank Sanders and "Dick" arrington will be dead from old age very soon.~ Takenoprisoners ADC-...
Redeye's Front Page - Apr 17
Well what do you know, it looks like some inaccurate information was posted by the Big Cats and Critters on the front page of Left in Alabama regarding the goings on at the Saturday's SDEC meeting in Montgomery. Party Vice Chair, Nancy Worley , sets the record straight via PM's List. Emphasis mine~RedEye Xxx, you and others remember well what happened four years ago a...
Redeye's Front Page - Apr 16
Left in Alabama the Informed. Involved. Progressive. Blog of record in Alabama that didn't manage to write one post about Trayvon Martin has not one , but two post, on it's front page whining about everything from Joe Reed , to Nancy Worley , to minorities mean being 'black" and nothing else ( seriously? ), to hand counting paper ballots instead of using...
Redeye's Front Page - Apr 15
Sigh. Now we ( taxpayers ) know why the F letcher E. Seldon Progress Center just had to be closed, and students ( tax dollars ) shipped off to a private , residential , drug treatment facility. And no, It's not because the cost for the Pinnacle program is cheaper, nor because the Seldon Center was "not working". It had to be cl...
Redeye's Front Page - Apr 6
State departments of motor vehicles are cultural icons of government at its most bureaucratic, inefficient, and obtuse. At least according to their reputation, heedless unconcern for the citizens' time or convenience seems to be a basic organizing principle. To the extent that this reputation is true it provides millions of individuals all over the country with direct personal reinforcem...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Apr 3
By Elena Lacayo, Immigration Field Coordinator, NCLR It appears some of Mississippi’s lawmakers are showing neighborly love in the worst way possible–by attempting to push through a copy of Alabama’s HB 56 in their own legislature. Like its widely reviled predecessor, Mississippi’s HB 488 is designed to make living conditions so unbearable for immigrants that they have no choice but to upr...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Mar 29
Hello Fellow Kossacks: Today I am writing another personal diary. And I am making no bones about it, this is a diary about a project I am working on, an original play about the holocaust. This is just the first installment for this series I call: Come see this damn play is you live any where close to Birmingham, Alabama. The tickets are only $5 each, the high school is afraid to charge w...
DailyKos (Alabama) - Mar 29
