EYE am willing to forgive you Governor Bentley, but first you must repent!

Dear Governor Bentley,
EYE saw where you threw yourself on the altar and pulled the "I'm seeking forgiveness from y'all and God for what I've done card the 
other day in an attempt to justify your remaining in office, despite being caught red-handed doing some un-Godly stuff with a woman who was not your wife.

Being the good Deacon and Sunday School teacher you are, EYE mean, were,  EYE know you believe in the Ten Commandments, by my count you broke numbers,1, 7, 9, and 10.  Thou shall not kill ( your refusal to expand Medicaid is killing people), Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not bear false witness (lie), and Tough shall not covet (another man's wife).

EYE am willing to forgive your transgressions because the alternative is worse,  but first, you must repent.  Here's a list of things you can do to repent for your sins and earn the forgiveness of the citizens of Sweet Home Alabama.  

The first thing you can do is stop standing up to Obama and expand Medicaid.  President Obama has access to the best medical care our tax dollars can buy, as do you.  Medicaid expansion isn't about sticking it to President Obama.  Rather, it's about the working poor — those who, right now, are working and making too much money to qualify for Medicaid as it is but who are not making enough to afford health insurance, even after subsidies from the Affordable Care Act.

Second, you can rescind the Voter Suppression,  EYE mean Voter ID Bill now that we have proof it's keeping registered voters from casting their vote.  This voter purge is undermining our democracy, you have the power to restore the right to vote.

Third, you can rescind the bill that cut off funding for women's health clinics, reducing the number of women's health clinics to six, making it hard, if not impossible for poor women, not to be confused with affluent women, to have access to health care. As a result of this bill, thousands of women across Alabama are no longer be able to access essential reproductive health care, such as cancer screenings, birth control, and well-woman exams. This is a cruel bill is designed to rip health care away from those most at risk.

Fourth, you know that mean-spirited immigration bill you signed that put Alabama on the map that crashed and burned?  Now it's time for you to shut down the detention centers.  Actually, EYE am more afraid of you and the republicans than EYE am of Syrian refugees.

After the recent death of Mr. Teka Gulema in late January – an Ethiopian immigrant who passed away after spending nearly a year in serious condition while in detention – activists are again highlighting why Etowah must be closed. Gulema’s death comes on the heels of a two-week hunger strike waged by Bangladeshi detainees against the inhumane treatment they’ve been subjected to in Etowah. Activists have been highlighting that the conditions in Etowah can be deadly if not at least torturous.

Finally, please let the citizens of Alabama gamble with their own damn money, in their own damn state if they choose to do so.  attorney General Luther Strange has caused "economic devastation" to the residents of the Black Belt by unlawfully closing the Victory Land casino.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court struck down the keep gays from getting married bill so you don't have to worry about that, just say you're sorry you care more about keeping gays from getting married than you do keeping your marriage vows and move on.

2 Chronicles 7:14  says,  If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

RedEye

EYE understand the fear in #SweetHomeAlabama #DonaldTrumpSupporters vs #BlackLivesMatterBirmingham Edition

Mercutio Southall was arrested in April 2015 during a protest in front of Birmingham police headquarters on First Avenue North. (Carol Robinson)

Remember what GOP presidential front runner Donald Trump said would happen if #BlackLivesMatter protesters dared try to shut him down?  

I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself or if other people will.

Well now we know... other people will do the fighting for him.

Trump supporters — yes, the same crowd that attracts “White Power Rangers” in droves — finally had an opportunity to do what they all secretly want to do anyway: beat up a black guy. At a campaign event in Birmingham, Alabama, a city with a long history of racism, discrimination, and violence against minorities, an African-American man became too disruptive for Trump’s liking, so the billionaire screamed “Get him the hell out of here.”

EYE thought Governor Bentley said it was his responsibility to protect us? 

Trump, the front-running Republican presidential candidate, had Southall thrown out. Secret Service agents and Birmingham police escorted Southall from the room. "They were trying to protect them from me and I was like, 'where were you when they were attacking me and choking me?" he said.
Southall said he was repeatedly called a "n****r" and "monkey" and told his life doesn't matter. It's nothing new to him. "When I wake up in the morning, I pretty much expect trouble,'' he said. "We're not the Negros from the 60s. I believe in defending myself, defending my people and sticking up for my people."
"I'm not violent. I'm not out threatening to blow up people,'' he said. "Self-preservation is an instinct every creature has and we deserve respect."

Nope, Mr. Southall, Donald Trump said you got what you deserved, and it wasn't r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Trump was asked to weigh in on his supporters’ actions on Fox & Friends Sunday morning. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” he said. “It was disgusting what he was doing.”
The Republican frontrunner compared what happened at his rally to a Black Lives Matter protest at a Bernie Sanders event, which prompted the Democratic candidate to release a detailed racial justice plan. “This is not the way Bernie Sanders handled his problem, I will tell you, but I have a lot of fans and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy, a troublemaker, looking to make trouble,” Trump said. 

AL.com captured a video of Southall flipping off the crowd while being led out of the building by police, but they didn't capture a video of Southall being attacked by trump supporters. Typical case of the media turning the victim into the criminal.

EYE understand the fear in Sweet Home Alabama.  Maybe they should change the slogan from Alabama the Beautiful to something else.....

Congressman (sic) Mo "anything short of shooting illegals" Brooks is making #SweetHomeAlabama proud again.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

Not.  It ought to be against the law to use the public airways to spew hatred, bigotry, and misinformation, but it's not, so Alabama's CD 5 Congress Critter Mo Brooks went there when he made an appearance on Radio Boy's show.  

"We’re paying them about $15,000 a year in free health care, free food, free shelter, free clothing, free transportation,” Brooks said. “That answers very quickly why so many of them want to come to the United States of America.”
“We’re paying them to come here,” the Alabama congressman concluded. “It’s a paid vacation!”

Yep,  Mo used the public airways to misinform the uniformed, and turn the victims into criminals.

Instead of viewing refugees as people fleeing the violence that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, Brooks saw a host of incoming welfare queens intent on taking advantage of Americans’ generosity.

Psst Mo!  Sweet Home Alabama is the last place Syrian Refugees would want to "vacation".  They are trying to flee violence and despair. 

Thousands of civilians have been victims of mass shootings and gunfire between government forces and insurgents. In one case documented by the United Nations, more than 100 people, including at least 49 children, were killed in Homs on May 25, 2012. Most were shot at close range.
The U.N. reports that armed opposition groups have also executed children, but lack of access in areas controlled by the Islamic State has prevented systematic documentation. “In places like Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, it’s almost impossible to verify the information,” said Bassam al-Ahmad, spokesman for the Violation Documentation Center in Syria.

What is most troubling to me is the fact Mo Brooks is an elected official, and has been most of his adult life.  For an elected official to have this point of view is dangerous, because he also has to the power to act on his beliefs.

In its essence, racism is culturally sanctioned strategies that defend the advantages of power, privilege and prestige which "Whites have because of the subordinated position of racial minorities." This deliberate political, economical, religious and sociocultural structuring of privilege, does not take place in some moral vacuum. It has behind it the moral force of an ideology of supremacy, an ill-will that claims racial superiority and pride of position. By ideology I mean a system of ideas and beliefs about the universe, to which a people adhere in order to justify their attitudes and actions. This ideology can have a religious or a scientific basis, depending on which one shapes our worldview. Nevertheless the outcome is the same, where one group benefits and the other does not.

They say parents are the first teachers, so I have to assume Mo Brooks was raised with this point of view, and he raised his children with this point of view, and they are raising their children with this point of view, and that it will go on, and on, and on.  Sigh

We can't stop people from being racist, but we damn well can stop electing them to office.   The only problem is finding someone to vote for.  Surely there are more people of good will than there are of... them.