Here is a picture of Sen. Richard "Dick" Shelby(r. Tuscaloosa) standing up to President Obama every day

Pres. Obama and Al. Gov. Robert Bentley tour tornado devastation (Larry Downing/Reuters)

Uh, about that standing up to President Obama every day Senator Shelby Sir.

Due to your age,  EYE can understand if you have some memory loss, but your aides should know better.  Either they are suffering from amnesia, or they think we are.  Perhaps you've forgotten the massive tornado that ripped through Sweet Home Alabama in April of 2011, when President Obama flew to Birmingham, AL,  motorcades to Tuscaloosa to assure Alabamans that every level of government was fully dedicated to doing everything possible to help the community recover from the devastation,

Even as Republicans have been kicking and screaming about the need to shrink government, even as they support a budget plan that would devastate government's ability to respond to disasters like this, when something like this happens they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Obama as government leaders eager to serve the people they represent. They aren't calling him a socialist, they aren't saying he was born in Kenya, they aren't accusing him of trying to kill grandma: they are just trying to do the right thing. It's just too bad it took a horrific storm to bring out that cooperative spirit.

EYE see you and the rest of the white, male, red republicans walking WITH President Obama, and the democrats walking BEHIND. 

Sidebar with a sigh
If you look closely at the photograph attached to this diary of a VIP group walking with President Obama, I count nine individuals....Two in the front row, three in the middle row and four in the back, one of whom is barely visible as a pair of grey-trousered legs and the corner of a face. Two of them -- counting the President -- are non-white, one more may be.
The proportion of non-white persons in Alabama's population is about 29%, so 22%, or better 33%, persons of color (2 or 3 out of 9) would not be far out of line with the state population.
According to the same source, the proportion of persons in the population of Alabama who happen to be female is almost 52%. Female persons in the VIP group including President Obama: precisely zero.

You may be suffering from memory loss but we the people will never forget. Link inserted for emphasis mine.

I'm glad the President and First Lady came to Alabama but, why didn't he visit Birmingham too? He went to the place that didn't vote for him, and ignored the place that did. And why wasn't Rep. Terri Sewell, the states top Democrat, the first person to greet President Obama instead of being 4th in line behind anti Socialist Bentley, "I haven't seen his birth certificate" Shelby, "I gave you the middle finger and sent the Azalea Trail Maids to your inauguration parade", Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and "Birther Spencer Bacchus" all republicans?

You might want to reconsider your Wag the Dog political commercials because that dog won't hunt. 

To ‘Wag the Dog’ means to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance. By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.
The expression comes from the saying that ‘a dog is smarter than its tail’, but if the tail were smarter, then the tail would ‘wag the dog.
In other words, Shelby’s commercial is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from the facts.

RedEye 

It's 2016, EYE am Back!

My annual mental health break is over and EYE am back, raring to go! First, EYE would like to wish my readers a Happy New Year!  It is my HOPE 2016 will be the year for CHANGE we can believe in. If EYE offended anyone in 2015 by Keeping it Real,  EYE apologize.  NOT.  It's only going to get worse in 2016. The first day of the January marks the last day of Kwanzaa. EYE will continue to keep my eyes on the prize, be a voice for the voiceless, refuse to be marginalized, minimized and undervalued, and, to speak my mind with passion, courage and Faith.  That said, let's get busy.

So much stuff happened while EYE was on break EYE don't know where to start.  Since EYE keep an EYE on the Reddest of the Red States let's with a year in review of Sweet Home Alabama, where football dominates, public education, jobs, environmental protection, ethics, and  quality of life for children,  not so much. 

Much Ado was made about the brawl between Birmingham Mayor William Bell and City Council Member Marcus Lundy.  The media tried to make them the poster boys for Scumbags  and incompetence (code for stupid), but EYE must remind them, this is what elected officials do in Alabama.... and, it's not just the African American elected officials.

So, while the white, EYE mean, right wing of the Alabama Democratic Party tried to pull a coupe on Joe Reed and his bunch so white folks could regain control of the party, Alabama republicans were dismantling the already pitiful public education system.  If democrats spent half as much time fighting republicans as they did Joe Reed and his bunch, maybe the state wouldn't be first in football and last in everything else. 

Who knew the reason white democrats stayed at home in 2010 was because they believed Obama hadn’t done enough so they decided to stay home to “punish” Obama for not being the Savior they thought they’d elected in 2008 and stuck all of us with GOP majorities in Congress).  If anyone should have stayed home in 2010 because Obama was not the Savior they thought they elected in 2008 it should have been African American democrats, but we didn't, because we don't have the luxury of not voting.  The right to vote is sacred to African Americans.  It's steeped in blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice.  We can always be counted on to vote.  White democrats not so much.

African Americans vote even when we don't have anyone to vote FOR.  But that's going to change for me.  EYE will no longer vote a straight democratic ticket.  Just because someone is on the democratic ticket doesn't mean they are a democrat.  And no, an African American Pastor who moved to the state two years ago, who was an Independent (code for republican) before he was a democrat, whose deep personal belief is life begins at conception, and preserving second amendment rights  doesn't cut it. If EYE wanted a someone who shared his point of view EYE would be a republican.

Lot's more to talk about, stay tuned.

RedEye

"The Storm is Passing Over"

During a recent episode of The Good Wife, the main character was asked if she was happy. She replied;

"Are we happy when the storm passes over or are we relieved?"

I am relieved to report me and mine are fine. We had relatively minor property damage, however many friends lost everything, some for the second time, due to a tornado. The death count is rising daily, damages continue to be assessed, power is gradually being restored.

As a life long resident of Tornado Ally, I have to ask, is it a coincidence the red, republican, Confederate Slave states are being bombarded with tornadoes, floods, and fires? Will the latest frightful day in Alabama put a stop to the human meaness?

But what about human meanness? Are we capable of coming to grips with that, limiting the havoc it wreaks? I'm not optimistic about that one. This blog chronicles the actions of numerous judges, lawyers, and individuals who have acted corruptly in our justice system, heaping major damage on their fellow human travelers. Like Mrs. Schnauzer and me, quite a few of these bad actors probably were fortunate to escape major damage in yesterday's storms. Did that cause any of them to stop for a moment, count their blessings, and vow to change their ways? I doubt it. Were many of them right back to their underhanded ways this morning? Probably so.

Probably so indeed. Which brings me to the politicization of President Obama's post storm visit to Alabama.

Even as Republicans have been kicking and screaming about the need to shrink government, even as they support a budget plan that would devastate government's ability to respond to disasters like this, when something like this happens they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Obama as government leaders eager to serve the people they represent. They aren't calling him a socialist, they aren't saying he was born in Kenya, they aren't accusing him of trying to kill grandma: they are just trying to do the right thing. It's just too bad it took a horrific storm to bring out that cooperative spirit.

I hate to say it, but as an African American supporter of President Obama, his actions continue to disappoint me. Don't get me wrong, although it took a tornado to bring him to Alabama, I'm glad he came. But, Tuscaloosa was not the only area hit hard by the storms. Entire neighborhoods were devastated in nearby Birmingham also.

President Obama did not carry Tuscaloosa County, and he will never carry Tuscaloosa County. President Obama did carry Jefferson County, and he can count on carrying Jefferson County again. So why did he pander to the ones who will never vote for him at the expense of those who will, and did, vote for him?

It made me sick to my stomach to watch the President and First Lady arrive in Tuscaloosa and as femaledog notes;

I'm glad the President and First Lady came to Alabama but, why didn't he visit Birmingham too? He went to the place that didn't vote for him and ignored the place that did. And why wasn't Rep. Terri Sewell, the states top Democrat the first person to greet President Obama instead of being 4th in line behind anti Socialist Bentley, I haven't seen his birth certificate Shelby, I gave you the middle finger and sent the Azalea Trail Maids to your inauguration parade, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and Birther Spencer Bacchus all republicans?

Representative Terri Sewell (D.Birmingham) and Mayor William Bell (D.Birmingham) should have been the first people to greet President Obama when he stepped off Air Force One. And speaking of Air Force One,  it should have landed in Birmingham FIRST, Obama should have spent time there FIRST, then motorcade on down the road to T-Town.

Pres. Obama and Al. Gov. Robert Bentley tour tornado devastation (Larry Downing/Reuters)

Sidebar with a sigh

If you look closely at the photograph attached to this diary of a VIP group walking with President Obama, I count nine individuals....Two in the front row, three in the middle row and four in the back, one of whom is barely visible as a pair of grey-trousered legs and the corner of a face. Two of them -- counting the President -- are non-white, one more may be.
The proportion of non-white persons in Alabama's population is about 29%, so 22%, or better 33%, persons of color (2 or 3 out of 9) would not be far out of line with the state population.
According to the same source, the proportion of persons in the population of Alabama who happen to be female is almost 52%. Female persons in the VIP group including President Obama: precisely zero.

How I wish the mainstream media would ask Spencer Bacchus, Dick Shelby, Jeff Sessions, and other republicans from devastated areas if they still back Paul Ryan's budget that guts FEMA and the National Weather Service?

How I wish the mainstream media would focus on the pain and suffering in Pratt City Alabama to the same extent they focus on Tuscaloosa and the Royal Wedding.

How I wish the mainstream media would ask the red republicans how they feel about public service workers and the Unions who represent them now.

How I wish President Obama had bought relief to the people who voted for him instead of the people who didn't. 

EXCUSE NUMBER 10: “You can't expect him to address issues like black unemployment, which has been double the white rate forever. He's not the president of Black America, and you can't expect him to act like it. He's the president of the United States of America...”
QUICK ANSWER: Obama wasn't drafted, he volunteered for the job, he campaigned for it, said he was “Joshua” to Dr. King's Moses, and lectured us on the Fierce Urgency of Now. He campaigned like a “civil rights leader.” His web site said “Join the Movement!” If the black president can't or won't address black mass incarceration, black unemployment, HIV-AIDS, the foreclosure crisis and other matters that disproportionately affect our communities, then why do we have any kind of collective racial obligation to support him?

If the person we elect runs like a democrat then governs like a republican, for republicans, by the republicans, why do we have any kind of collective racial obligation to support him? What choice do we have?

The Storm is Passing Over for some, but not for all.  I am not relieved.