RedEye's Alabama Congress Critter Alert!

What's that you say? Alabama Congress Critter Jo Bonner (r. bigot) has a tendency to exploit the ethics committee for partisan gain? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you. NOT.

Ethics watchdogs are calling on Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL) to step down as chairman of the House Ethics Committee -- at least temporarily -- for his role in the ongoing turmoil over Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) case.

What was Bonner's role in the ongoing turmoil over Rep. Maxine Waters you ask?

Neither the House Ethics Committee nor Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) office returned a request for comment about allegations that Bonner engaged in improper communication with attorneys on the panel last year while he was still its ranking member.

An unprecedented leak of internal ethics documents from last fall provide new details about Bonner's role in the alleged bungling of the ethics committee's case against Waters. The scores of Ethics Committee e-mails and memos, reported by Politico Monday with links to the documents, paint a picture of a committee consumed by partisan dysfunction and accusations of professional misconduct surrounding Waters' case

Let's get ready to rumble!

Unlike in a normal court of law, Waters may have no formal way to file a complaint against the Ethics Committee. But at the very least, Waters could take her fight to the floor of the House, calling on Bonner to step down from the position and repeatedly raise the allegations of mistreatment and unprofessional conduct. The spectacle undoubtedly would attract the attention of the media and many of her peers already wary of the ethics committee's policing power.

Bonner's role in the Rangel lynching

The attorneys also improperly communicated with Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the special panel overseeing the trial of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who later the House censured for a separate string of charges, according to Chisam's memo. There are strict Ethics Committee rules preventing contact between the staff attorneys assigned to prosecute a case and the lawmakers who serve as the jury weighing the evidence.

Let this be a lesson for republicans and conservadems, ethics are for everybody.

Thanks to the republicans and their "progressive" enablers, there is a narrative that that all Democrats, especially black elected democrats, are corrupt and unethical. The jails are full and getting fuller of Democratic elected officials convicted after widely publicized media investigations. It has the "appearance" of political prosecutions.
For the record I'm not defending people who misuse public funds or who are trying to enrich themselves or their families. I'm defending our justice system and the rule of law.

The justice system that says defendants are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. The justice system that says justice is blind not partisan and political. The justice system that says we have the right to fair trial. The justice system that says the jury pool should not be tainted by pre trial publicity. The justice system on which this country was founded.

So much hypocrisy. So little time. But none dare call it racism.

RedEye Alabama Congress Critter Alert over and out. For now.

Tuesday "Mean as a Snake" Talking Points

Former President Bill Clinton, aka the Big Dog, said he would use the 14th amendment and tell the republicans to go Dick Cheney themselves (my words not his). Psst President Obama! This is the kind of President I thought we we had.

Former President Bill Clinton would invoke the 14th Amendment - “without hesitation, and force the courts to stop me,” he says - to raise the debt ceiling if he were in President Barack Obama’s shoes, with the deadline to raise the limit just two weeks away.

Democrats with gonads and who are fighting back. How refreshing. Psst ADP Chair Mark Kennedy! This is the kind of fight we need. Strike that. This is the kind of fight we want.

There is a class war being fought in Washington, DC right now, but it's extremely one-sided and so the outcome is obvious. By contrast, in Wisconsin the class war is being fully engaged from both sides, and the outcome there is balanced on the edge of a knife. That shouldn't come as a surprise, since there is no way to win a class war unless you fight one.

This is how real progressives fight back!

There is no doubt about our country being in trouble, and blame must be shared by both Democrats and Republicans. But we are not going to solve our problems with more tax breaks for the wealthy or the corporations. Nor are we going to solve the problems when your soul mission is to make the President look bad. Frankly, you and your Republican cohorts have done more damage to America than Osama bin Laden could have ever imagined or hoped for.

The only way out of this mess, which you helped create, is to stimulate the economy and get people back to work, and that won’t happen with further tax cuts. You can start by:

• raising the debt ceiling,
• ending all of the tax-based subsidies to the oil/gas, Ethanol, and tobacco cartels,
• repealing the Bush tax cuts, and
• then bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

On another note, what is it with Florida people when it comes to the rule of law? I mean, really?

Incoming-How did the South Huntsville Civic Association take over the Huntsville City School system?

Update-The South Huntsville Civic (sic) Association has taken over the Huntsville City School System

Let's recap for those who haven't been following the continuing saga of the sad, sorry state of the Huntsville City School system. Public Education is under attack in Huntsville, Alabama led by well funded group known as the South Huntsville Civic Association.

The South Huntsville Civic Association hosted a town hall meeting for the recently appointed Huntsville City Schools Superintendent. I am sharing an email I received from someone who attended the meeting with their permission and updated links inserted for clarity.

I attended this Republican cheer leading event at Grissom last evening. It was sickening. I’ve never seen so many Republicans in my life. There were 7 elected Repugs on the stage. Could well have been the Republican convention. They used these “civic” meetings to win the election for Mo Brooks, and it is absolutely the bailiwick of school board member, president, head honcho, Jennie Robinson. I have asked the school attorney how they could use a public building for political meetings, and he said "anybody could use it if they paid for it".

There’s a subtle movement to privatize/corporatize school systems across the country. That’s why this incompetent board - not including Morrison & McCauley - even though they’ve gotten us into a 20 million hole of which they’re getting off scott free, insisted on a nation-wide search for a new superintendent (never mind Huntsville’s history of engineers & rocket scientists). They came up with a man from Colorado, Casey Wardynski who has never even been near school children. He was the chief financial officer in Aurora, Colorado for 10 months – which he left IN a $25M DEBT.

Wardynski is a retired army colonel said he got a Masters at Harvard, then got a “PhD” at Rand Institute (a PhD mill) where he was accepted into the Broad Superintendents’ Academy. Here’s where it gets interesting: Broad doesn’t want people with experience, loves army types , but wants to train them fresh to take over school systems and start from scratch, get rid of the old, bring in new. They trained not to like teachers, won’t accept tenure. He’s already bringing in from Colorado a finance chief, and looking at a friend of his from Mississippi as assistant superintendent. ( Robinson is from Pennsylvania and is of the same philosophy, bad mouthed AEA throughout her campaign, said AEA wanted to raid school finances to give themselves a raise. Big business, including Committee of 100, Home builders Association, Chamber of Commerce gave her over $60,000 for her campaign; her Democratic opponent had only $12,000 but because of my help and that of others, she won by only 101 votes out of 5600 cast. Democracy almost worked.)

He believes in constant testing, which means that little to no subjective teaching/thinking can occur. If a goof-off kid refuses to behave and learn, then the teacher is out the door. On 6-10-11, HTimes said that “Leadership Huntsville/Madison County, an executive training program released Sarah Savage to support Wardynesky during his first 90 days. They’re doing it for free.

Look for strange goings on in the Huntsville School System.

Stay tuned for some of those "strange goings on".

Sunday Shorts

Congress Critter Mo Brooks making Sweet Home Alabama's 5th district proud! Not.

Yes, I'll dare call it Treason enabled by the mainstream media.

What is a Patriot? You won't find any on TeeVee.

Is the gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party a promoter of economic anarchy? Let me think about that for a minute....

Libya=Iraq

Peace be with you and yours~RedEye

Saturday Quick Rant

Between my real life and working on the Huntsville City Schools update I don't have time to write an in-depth diary but there are some things I just have to get off my chest.

If you don't read anything else I ever post, please read 8 Political Myths about Blacks you shouldn't believe.

By Anthony Jerrod
English novelist and essayist George Orwell once stated, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Indeed, throughout history, the political landscape has been littered with mental trash that subsequently has been accepted, processed and etched into the minds of certain individuals as truth.
To date, members of various ethnicities continue to witness the deep democratic struggles and the courage of people of African descent, who continually clothe themselves with love and justice in the face of monolithic adversity, resistance, malevolent acts, and attempts to diminish and eradicate black beauty, intelligence and potentiality.
As we embark on communicating the whole truth, it is essential that we persist in debunking lies intended to hold blacks captive. To be sure, the following is but a snapshot of popular myths and does not represent the full breadth of lies leveled by politicos on both sides of the aisle.

We Professional Lefty's tried to tell y'all The Tax Cut Deal was a hidden threat to Social Security. But did you listen? Nooooo. Can you hear us now?

WASHINGTON - The tax cut deal that President Obama struck with congressional Republicans contains a provision that could ultimately be the undoing of Social Security, say Senate Democrats and backers of the old-age and disability program.

Obama, as part of the Democratic package, secured a roughly 30 percent cut in the payroll tax, from 6.2 to 4.2 percent. Allowing it to expire in a year will mean that workers will see a nearly 50 percent jump in payroll taxes as the rate reverts back -- an event that will surely be described as a tax hike. The cut is estimated to cost $120 billion per year.

You are wrong ADP chair, Mark Kennedy. There is no civil rights struggle going on in Alabama about over immigration and I resent the comparison. This is not a civil rights struggle over immigration, it's an economic struggle. Did you forget the origins of the so-called immigration movement? President Reagan granted immunity to millions of Mexicans so they could come over here and do the jobs not that black didn't want to do, but jobs employers didn't want to pay blacks to do. They didn't start having a problem with them there illegals until they started wanting to be paid and have some rights. African Americans were brought to this country in chains. Hispanics came voluntarily.

Just call us the N-word Already and get it over with

My father used to say, in dealing with racists, you had rattlesnakes and you had water moccasins (his analogy). The rattlers were the ones who hollered “Nigger!” every time they saw your ass, so you weren’t surprised or upset by his bigoted ass. In time, you learned how to tune him out, and avoid him in the road, because he rattles, which lets you know he’s planning to strike.

OTOH, the water moccasin, like the black mamba, is a sneaky SOB that gives no warning when it’s going to strike. They lull you to a sense of safety…and, WHAM!, you’re snakebit and it just might kill you if you don’t get to a doc in time. IOW, you think someone’s not a bigot and then they drop that hammer on you – and you never knew what hit you.

Just another day in America

"A Negro's body was found on the outskirts of a small Mississippi town. The victim had been bound hand and foot, stabbed seventeen times, and had six bullet wounds in his body. "What's your verdict, sheriff?" asked a reporter. "Worst case of suicide I ever saw!" replied the lawman."

The following story from Connecticut reminds me of the joke you just read.

"Stamford Connecticut police have identified the body of a young woman found naked and dead under a tree this past Saturday.
Jasmine Brown, 21, [IN PIC] moved to New York from New Orleans a year ago to attend the Art Institute of New York City. Police believe the aspiring designer either fell or jumped to her death from the tree."

It's the job of Faux News to sell wars and misinform people. Which is why Fox News is blasted in every Airport, Hospital, Mall, The Utility Company, and Restaurants.

The FOX agenda is not to report the news to us in a straightforward fashion,it is to give the news they report a conservative slant and to influence and brainwash the A-merry-can people into their way of thinking. Goebbels would be proud.

7 winning issues for democrats if only they had the guts to fight. I have to give it to the right wing. Right or wrong they stand united and fight. Psst ADP chair Mark Kennedy! Read this and you won't have to beg democrats to "fight with you".

It's not enough for progressives to count on Republicans to lose in 2012. Democrats need to find some issues to fight for.

Congratulations to my friend Legal Schnauzer for reaching a milestone. He is bravest, most talented Blogger I know.

What did I set out to do? More than anything else, I wanted to accomplish these two things: (1) To call attention to the problem of corruption in our justice system, an issue that is mostly ignored in the mainstream press; (2) To write about legal corruption in a way that I didn't think was being presented anywhere else on the Web.

Thank you for personal sacrifice, hopefully, it will not be in vain.

My background is in journalism, and I knew that credibility would be crucial if this blog was going to have an impact. That's why I've posted under my real name, from day one. And it's why I frequently link to real case law and use Scribd (a wonderful tool) to publish documents from real court cases. I did not want this blog to be a theoretical exercise; I wanted it to cut close to the bone--to show what can happen to people in court and give a sense for how it feels to be victimized.

That approach has come with a price. If I had chosen to write under a fake name, Mrs. Schnauzer and I still would have our jobs. If I had used my real name, but focused only on my opinion about various subjects, we probably would still have our jobs. If I had used my real name, but been way off base on my factual assertions, we might still have our jobs. After all, I've come to realize that folks in power don't worry much about opinions or reporting that isn't solidly based in facts. But if you focus on genuine reporting that is on target--and you do it under your own name--that makes powerful folks uncomfortable. And that can make you a target.

Do I have second thoughts about starting the blog, or the approach we have taken? No, I don't. I knew I could not live with myself if I just "let it go" on the cheat job Mrs. Schnauzer and I experienced in the courts of Shelby County, Alabama, where we live. And when I researched the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor cases, and came to understand what had been done to them, I knew I could not stay silent about that, either.

Thank you for not staying silent. Silence helps the oppressor not the oppressed.