EYE wish white Democrats (and EYE use that term loosely) would pick a lane and stop walking down the yellow line in the middle of the road

Daddy used to say the only thing in the middle of the street is a yellow line. White Democrats would RATHER stay in the middle of the street than pick a lane.  They can't decide if they want to be democrats or if they want to be republicans.  Walking the yellow line allows them to be modern-day Dixiecrats.  

Reed defined a Dixiecrat as "those folks who are mad because blacks are a majority in the Democratic Party in Alabama."

White democratic women will defend the honor of a republican woman before they defend their own.

Democrats will praise/defend a republican before they praise/defend their own.



White democrats believe the only way they can "win" elections is to pander to the Republicans at the expense of their base because after all where can the base go?  The base is held captive on the plantation. 

“The data reveals that Black women voters are the very foundation to a winning coalition, yet most Black voters feel like the Democrats take them for granted,” the letter reads. “Since taking office, you have met with and listened to key constituencies. But you have yet to host a Black women leaders convening.”

Make up your mind.  You are either with us or you are with them.  Pick a lane.

Democrats text book! Lewis was beaten from his own party.

George Wallace, in full George Corley Wallace, also called George C. Wallace, (born August 25, 1919, Clio, Alabama, U.S.—died September 13, 1998, Montgomery), U.S. Democratic Party politician and four-time pic.twitter.com/s7gwlv1BXn

— #FACTCHECK (@Yesenia97756214) July 26, 2020

Congressman John Robert Lewis " rooted deep in Alabama soil"

Credit: courtesy of the Lewis family

 “So you are John Lewis? The boy from Troy,” Martin Luther King Jr. said upon meeting the teenager who would become one of the civil rights movement’s most famous, vocal, and long-lived members.

The third of ten children born to sharecropper Eddie Lewis and his wife, Willie Mae, John Lewis was out in the blistering Alabama fields at age 4, picking cotton, gathering peanuts, pulling corn. The family survived on the leavings after their white landlord deducted his rent in cash or crops. They lived in “Carter’s Quarters,” a tract that had been home to Willie Mae Carter’s family since slavery days. Ironically, it was just a few miles from where John Lewis’s great opponent, Gov. George Wallace, was raised.

My father couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription. I’d walk half a mile to get my grandfather’s paper after he got done reading it. I kept up with what was going on, reading that paper and listening to that radio. . . . We ordered everything from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. We called it ‘the Wish Book.’ . . . I was bused 18 miles to the Pike County Training School. Black schools were ‘training schools’; whites went to high schools. We had old broken-down buses, ragged books, a rundown building. White students had new buses, nice painted buildings with the grounds kept up. . . . In Troy, they had a soda fountain where you could get Coca-Cola. We called it a combination. A black person could not take a seat. We had to stand at the end of the counter. ‘May I have a combination?’ You put your money down and went outside to the street corner to drink it. . . . As a young child I saw a difference. I resented it. Even the country road where I grew up—because black people owned the land, the road was left unpaved for many, many years. When it rained, the bus got stuck in the mud. That was life in Alabama.—U.S. Rep. John Lewis

Listen to John Lewis describe how Rev. Martin Luther King Jr inspired him in his own words.

While researching John Lewis EYE discovered black politics are more complex than they look.

Sometimes, going back into history is what helps define the present in black politics and helps point the way forward. The fight for Atlanta’s fifth congressional district once upon a time, in 1986, pitted two civil rights icons, Julian Bond and John Lewis, against each other. It is the sort of history that tells us everything about much of black politics today: Bond, the intellectual race man beloved by blacks, loses to John Lewis, the man who sold himself particularly well to whites.

Rest in peace, power, and love with the #Ancestors Congressman John Lewis. EYE will keep getting into #GoodTrouble in #SweetHomeAlabama in honor of your courage and sacrifice. 

Updated: Get Your Fright On~ Halloween on the Alabama #DemocraticPartyPlantation

Myrtles Plantation And the Ghost of One Slaves Bloody Revenge

It's getting downright spooky on the #DemocraticPlantation in #SweetHomeAlabama.

Alabama progressives should be leery of the Jones-Ragsdale tag team, veteran political activist Jill Simpson said on her Facebook page yesterday. Simpson noted that three individuals who helped unmask Fuller -- herself, attorney-blogger Donald Watkins, and yours truly -- came under attack from right-wing forces aligned with Jones and Ragsdale:

Let's recap:
A faction of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDLC), led by U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) met in Montgomery, AL  where the Jones faction approved new bylaws in a major step toward replacing current party leaders Nancy Worley and Joe Reed.

Seventy-eight of the approximately 250 SDEC committee members attended.
They adopted the new rules on a voice vote with no audible dissent. They voted to meet again on Nov. 2 to hold the new election for chair and vice chair.
Four representatives of the Democratic National Committee were at today’s meeting, including Harold Ickes, a member of the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee. Ickes said his role was to monitor. He has been involved in the year-long dispute between the DNC and the state party.

The Alabama Republican Party is eager to unseat Jones to help the GOP hold on to control of the U.S. Senate and if Black Democrats don't vote for him that's exactly what will happen. 

Black voters made up 29 percent of the electorate in Alabama's special Senate election, according to exit polling. That percentage is slightly more than the percentage of Black voters in the state who turned out for Barack Obama in 2012. And a full 96 percent of Black voters in Alabama Tuesday supported Jones, including 98 percent of African-American women. "Black women led us to victory. Black women are the backbone of the Democratic party," Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez tweeted Wednesday morning, "and we can't take that for granted. Period."

And yet that's exactly what they are doing.   

But here is the Political Play of the Decade: For Democrats to have any realistic hopes of taking control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans they need to hold on to Jones seat. So control of the U.S. Senate is in the control of Alabama's Black block vote and we are damned if we vote for Doug Jones and damned if we don't.

Ain't that a dip?

Psst! Nancy Worley EYE know the tremendous pressure you are under and EYE appreciate your fighting spirit b-but...

Although you have been successful in the past at keeping the angry white males and the women who love them at bay I sense a force that is bigger, meaner, powerful, and more determined than ever before controlling this latest effort to take the ADP back to the Party of George Wallace.

Be afraid.....

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer to go pray.

RedEye's Rundown and "White Folks Explainer"

"Whiteness is a constantly changing, made up idea used as a tool to preserve power. Let's break it down."

Whiteness is a constantly changing, made-up idea used as a tool to preserve power. Let's break it down: pic.twitter.com/7dSPtGRKqn

— Splinter (@splinter_news) August 22, 2017

Remember when candidate Trump asked black people what the hell they had to lose?

Trump is the new and improved George C. Wallace. 

Maybe it's time to rethink that  counter protesting thingy.

 The A$$e$ of Evil can spare me their white tears.

What's worse?  The 10% of Republicans that are Nazis, or the 85% that are cool with it? https://t.co/uszeohG8DQ

— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) August 22, 2017

"Joey Kennedy nails it. If you're with Trump then you're just like Trump. Deal with it."

Republicans say cut Social Security—Cut Medicare—Cut Medicaid—Cut Food Stamps. I say CUT Republicans in 2016 pic.twitter.com/9iX1OO5tw3

— Captain Clarion (@citizensrock) July 1, 2016

Today's Must Read.

How can anybody support Trump? How can anybody believe he’s the best we have to lead the United States. Don’t vote for Hillary if you don’t like her. But don’t vote for Trump unless you’re like him.
Surely, Trump only caters to those who look like him: Angry White Men. With Bad Hair.

You are who/what you vote.... for.

These are times that try men and womens’ souls. We have not heard the type of things we’ve heard from Trump since George Wallace in 1968.

RedEye

Edit~For the first time in decades, state Democrats have a real shot at victory. But can they put their hatred of Joe Reed and his bunch aside and capititalize?

Poor Alabama Democrats, (and EYE use that term loosely), thanks to the Alabama Republican Party being exposed as the corrupt crooks they are,   Alabama Republicans have handed the Democrats a golden opportunity to make a comeback.  Ye Haw!

Governor Robert Bentley, who modeled himself as a Christian candidate dedicated to family values, has found himself wrapped in an adulterous sex scandal. Speaker Mike Hubbard, who ran a campaign based on weeding out corruption in the state house, was recently convicted on 12 felony counts of corruption. And Chief Justice Roy Moore, whose only job is to uphold the values of the Constitution, was suspended—again—for ignoring the ruling of the supreme court and violating the separation of Church and State.

 There's only one big, black, problem for Alabama Dems......

Joe Reed, party boss of the State Democratic Executive Committee (of which there are roughly 50+ vacancies), and Nancy Worley, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, have managed to deal out as much damage to the Democrats as the Republicans have—if not more. Their ineffective leadership and shameful obstruction have led to a disorganized Party and a brutally apathetic voter base.

If the Democrats want to take full advantage of the Republican train wreck, they'll have to do more than vote. They'll have to actively take the party back.

RedEye's translation:  If the Democrats want to take full advantage of the Republican train wreck, they'll have to do more than vote.  They'll have to actively take the party back from Joe Reed and his bunch.

I was pleased to learn the Alabama Democratic Party, under the capable and effective leadership of Acting Chair Nancy Worley, and Minority Affairs Chair Dr. Joe Reed, were able to Stonewall the latest attack  on African American influence within the SDEC.

There is an organized, media ... enabled, effort to take the Alabama Democratic Party back to before.

This poses the biggest problem for black voters today, which is that Democrats running for state or national office aspire to win black votes without appearing to be beholden to black voters. This is especially true of the three Democratic presidents since Kennedy and Johnson. Black support was crucial to the elections of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (each received over 80 percent of black votes), but both distanced themselves from policies that might seem to disproportionately help black people.

Back to a time when the Alabama Democratic Party didn't cater to blacks at the expense of whites. 

The Alabama Democratic Majority was formed because the Alabama Democratic Party was seen as the party of black citizens (like that's a bad thing) and it drove white men out in droves. I remember being at a local Democratic County Meeting where the topic was how to get white men to come back to the democratic party. I said then, and I say now, the only way to get white men to come back is for the Alabama Democratic Party to turn it's back on it's core principals and beliefs. In other words, turn into the Alabama Republican party.

A time when African Americans didn't have a seat at the table.

To combat the continuing absolute racism of the Alabama Democratic Party, some of us created another Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA), went through a difficult struggle, and elected the first blacks to office in Alabama as Democrats! But the ADP fought as a fully segregated party for almost 10 years as the NDPA came to hold over 100 elected offices,more than any other state!!! Then and only then did the ADP want us, and we forgivingly moved into the ADP. But of course its leadership remained fully racist and we have been struggling to change that ever since. But racists continued to run for and hold office as Democrats. It never fully changed. That makes it clear why people are still very suspicious of attitudes in the ADP.

 A time when the democratic party was the republican party.

Seriously, where is my democratic party? The party of Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and other proud, unashamed liberals?

The party that stood up for women's rights, civil rights and human rights?
The party that didn't throw the traditional base under the bus just to be elected?
The party that was the home of progressives and liberals?

EYE have a question for Alabama Democrats, would you rather lose and blame it on Joe Reed and his bunch, or are you going to take advantage of the republican train wreck and win?  Time will tell the truth.

“I am not a member of any organized party – I am a Democrat.”~Will Rodgers

Say, Have You Seen My Democracy? #VoteForYourLife

Sharing with permission, this up close and personal account of a Donald Trump rally via Facebook.  Read it and Weep. ~RedEYE

(The guy in the suit is a Trump Secret Service agent)

This is what I will say about the Trump rally I attended Saturday...alone.

It was scary. This man knows just what to say to fire up his crowd, no matter how factually inaccurate it may be.

Wall! ISIS! Kill Them! Mexico!

Then there was the blatant fear mongering. He told Ohioans that only oil was propping up their state, and that their economy was in serious trouble. He said this over and over again.

He also told the crowd that ISIS was out to kill them. That ISIS was putting 50 people at a time in cages and drowning them in the ocean. And that we had to kill them first.

Cheers for water boarding. Cheers for torture. Calls to cut off their heads.

If this was a brown person saying the exact same things in the Middle East, we'd call them a dangerous terrorist. But since it's a white man in America, we call him a Presidential Candidate.

The scariest part was the crowd. They loved everything that was being said. The calls for the wall. The calls to blow up oil fields. The calls to torture and kill people.

And the protesters. Every time a protester was kicked out, they were yells to get them out of here, even to KILL THEM!!!

Really? Kill them? For protesting?

When Trump brought up Obama, a teen even exclaimed "F+CK THAT NI&&ER!!!!"

I felt like at any point, the crowd was going to light torches and grab their pitchforks, and spill out into the streets.

The worst part was when their venom turned toward me. There were protesters around me who got ushered out, and then people started pointing at me, motioning for the Secret Service to "get him out of there".

Now mind you, I hadn't uttered a single word the entire rally, but people still said things like "Well what about this one? He needs to go too!"

At this point, the black kid that grew up in the projects, surrounded by drugs and gunfire, felt CONCERNED for his safety...at a Donald Trump rally.

At that rally, I saw the scary underbelly of America. I saw unadulterated hate, fueled by intentional misinformation.

These people who, just 2 hours ago, seemed like good and kind people, were now cheering for blood.

The worst part is Donald Trump knows EXACTLY what he's doing. He's patterned his campaign after a WWE match...

And it's working.

‪#‎Trump‬
‪#‎TrumpRally‬
‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬

This Elections is 1968 All Over Again, And That's Not a Good Thing.

#SweetHomeAlabama Governor Robert Bentley (r. Tuscaloosa) says the "outcry" over the racism of closing the DVM offices is "race politics at it's worse."

Alabama one of the most corrupt states in the country

Project much Governor?    EYE think balancing the budget on the backs of Alabama's Black Belt, refusing to expand Medicaid, signing a Voter ID Bill , closing DVM offices in the Black Belt, robbing the public education budget, and cutting off state funding to planned parenthood, preventing poor /black women from having access to a safe legal abortion is playing race politics at it's worst, but that' s just me.

"Alabama is not George Wallace's state. I don't want it to be George Wallace's state." said Bentley. "I want us to be inclusive. I don't want us to look at the color of people's skin. I don't want us to look at whether they are male or female. We are all Alabamians and I'm their governor. I know most of them (blacks in the affected counties losing driver's license offices) are not going to vote Republican. But you are not going to win people over by not being inclusive."

Psst Governor Bentley.....look in the mirror and say that so you can see how race politics at it's worse looks.   

Blaming the victim is so GOP.

Tell Congress to #RestoreTheVote

EYE am sick and tired of being sick and tired of the media enabled  fake outrage , and demands for a DOJ investigation, after Alabama closed 31 DMV offices in mostly poor, rural counties with majority African-American populations. under the guise of saving money.

EYE am sick and tired of the pretense and hand wringing. Let's get real. This is #Sweet Home Alabama people.

The home of Jimmie Lee Jackson.
The Home of some First Class Funerals. 
The Home of Viola Luzzio.
The Home of Amelia Boynton Robinson.
The Home of Bull Conner. 
The Cradle of the Confederacy. 
 he Home of Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever.
The Home of Shelby Co. vs Holder. 
The Home of Selma.
It's not rocket science.

Talk is cheap. Now is the time to put up or shut up. Instead of calling for investigations after the fact, call on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act. Instead of complaining about the results after enabling the results, call on the Alabama State Legislature to repeal the Voter ID Bill.

We must strongly encourage both Houses of the U.S. Congress to enact strong legislation to restore, strengthen and modernize the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when they return to Washington, D.C. after the November election for the “lame duck” session. We need to ensure that Americans’ right to vote is not compromised!

Action We Should Take >>

#WhiteTerror #BlackPain #SayTheirNames #CarolRoberston #DeniseMcNair #CynthiaWesely #AddieMaeCollins

Denise McNair, Carol Robinson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley Resting in Heavenly Peace

Again, the reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats. I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

Does this sound familiar?

Back in 1966, after an election in which, having won voting rights after the
1965 Selma to Montgomery March, in which I lost two dear friend, Rev Jim
Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, blacks rushed to register to vote and to run for office, most considered themselves to be Democrats . Gov Wallace (a democrat) refused to allow them to run for office as Democrats. To combat the continuing absolute racism of the Alabama Democratic Party, some of us created another Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA), went through a difficult struggle, and elected the first blacks to office in Alabama as Democrats! But the ADP fought as a fully segregated party for almost 10 years as the NDPA came to hold over 100 elected offices,more than any other state!!! Then and only then did the ADP want us, and we forgivingly moved into the ADP. But of course its leadership remained fully racist and we have been struggling to change that ever since. But racists continued to run for and hold office as Democrats. It never fully changed. That makes it clear why people are still very suspicious of attitudes in the ADP.

Prior to the the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixons' Southern Strategy, these people were loyal democrats, then the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath and the republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraging them to join the GOP. The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party.

When Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 voting Rights Act, he said “there goes the Democratic Party in the South.” How right he was."What ever political party draws it's strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat. " 

Are you with us, or are you with them?

That is the question.

Meet the new #Segregationist, same as the old #Segregationist, now they are the #media

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly (Credit: Reuters/Micah Walter/AP/Douglas C. Pizac)

New Rules:  Instead of standing in the school house door, the new Segregationist sit in front of cameras and microphones while using the public airways to enable media driven racial stereotypes.

It is not simply that Black people are victims of a numbers game. Rather, there has been a wholesale P.R. campaign on the part of those on the right to associate all public goods and services, from public schools to public assistance, with the bodies of undeserving people of color, particularly Blacks and Latinos.

Yep, the white, male dominated, media enables elected officials , and others in position of power and influence, to drive a false narrative.

Any discussion of welfare or public assistance in this country is rife with dog whistles from the right toward the lower elements of their base, who in Pavlovian fashion, respond to code words about welfare and public assistance by conjuring images of the undeserving Black and Brown poor.

Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever, from sea to shining sea.

In his new book “How Propaganda Works,” Yale philosopher Jason Stanley argues that while a “liberal democratic culture… does not tolerate explicit degradation of its citizens,” there are “apparently innocent words that have the feature of slurs, namely that whenever the words occur in a sentence, they convey the problematic content. The word welfare …conveys a problematic social meaning.” I am suggesting that the word “public” in our political discourse is becoming just such a tool of political propaganda as well.

Who needs George Wallace when we have the media?

 Despite bright spots in the mainstream media for representing race and gender diversity, like Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC, the output of the industry largely still appears white and male. Almost 40 percent of the U.S. identifies as nonwhite and women make up more than half of the population, yet popular media outlets largely remain homogenous. Missing diverse perspectives from the media landscape can have wide-ranging detrimental effects.

Ya Think?

"Don't believe the hype, this is NOT ‪#‎schoolchoice‬. This is #sabotage, #racism, and #abuse."

The "Southern Strategy" never gets old h/t Field Negro 

Charter School operators continue to make billions by pushing harsh discipline practices that ‪punish black/brown/poor children, under the guise of providing them with a quality education.

 While the conference sponsors point to charters and vouchers as needed options for low-income families trapped in low-performing school systems, critics argue that public resources should be reserved for conventional public school systems. They say privately run charters infringe on democracy, as charter school boards are typically self-selected instead of elected.
School choice critics wanted to share their views with conference attendees but said the $400 registration fee was too costly. So they protested outside.
"We would prefer that funding would be kept in the public school system," organizer and parent Gina Womack said. Charters should be held more accountable, to ensure that children are fairly disciplined, she and others said. 

Charter schools are a big part of the problem.

State Rep. Phil Williams (r.) and his gop cronies are pushing for Charter Schools under the guise poor, black children can escape under performing public schools.  Bull Poo.  If Phil Williams and the gop really cared about the education of poor, black/brown  children they would address the funding inequities instead of whining about  the myth of throwing money at the problem, and trying to destroy the Alabama Education Association.

 Charter schools are just another way the conservatives try to backdoor privatize education.

 The premise is that they hope to be able to convince the district to allow them to operate multiple charter schools under the premise they can do things cheaper.  Do you really want your kid being educated by a for profit company basically doing the work of the lowest bidder? With all the private schools here in Alabama, bleeding parents dry for the simple fact they don't want their kids to have to go to school with brown or black kids, the state seems to be ripe for laws allowing charter schools.  Now parents will be able to have their "school choice" at a fraction of the cost private school would have required.

 Segregation today = Segregation forever.

 Let's get one thing straight right off the bat...if Charter Schools provided options for poor/black/brown children, it would NOT be a top priority for Alabama republicans.   Charter Schools are the  vehicle republicans drive on the road to privatized  public education.  Although Charter Schools are funded with tax dollars, Charter Schools don't have to accept ALL children, regardless of race, income, gender, disability, or athletic ability.They can pick and choose the cream of the crop and leave the rest behind. 

Mission Accomplished

Gov. Robert Bentley's new segregation policy director has worked under some controversial regimes in high-profile efforts to turn around failing schools.
Emily Schultz, 28, began her job as Bentley's segregation policy adviser in November, with a top priority of getting a law allowing segregated schools passed during the next legislative session.
Previously, the Birmingham native worked under Michelle Rhee, who became chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools after the mayor took control of the district and cost him his job.

Follow the money

RedEye

Update~ Huntsville school board unanimously approves segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever

J.R. Brooks, attorney for Huntsville City Schools (file) The Gate Keeper

Huntsville City Schools superintendent, and his media enablers claim the historic moment brings city wide equity.  I guess it depends on what their definition of citywide equity IS.

With no discussion following four hours of questions to its counsel, the Huntsville Board of Education unanimously approved the proposed consent order that plans out citywide rezoning.

 Superintendent Casey Wardynski, aided by the school's legal counsel and the U.S. Justice Department. The adopted plan will be presented to U.S. District Court on March 11 for judge approval. If approved, the school district can move forward with plans, including construction of new schools.
"It's an historic moment," Wardynski said excitedly after the board voted.

From the files of they must think U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala   has amnesia.

Judge Haikala took particular exception to much of Wardynski's testimony, from finding his comments on federal grants untrue to finding insubstantial his objections to the federal rezoning proposals.

"The Court strongly suspects that the district has chosen not to share many of the reasons for the choices that it made as it shaped its student assignment plan. The Court got a glimpse into the superintendent's thinking when the United States's cross-examined him about his objections to the government's rezoning proposals. When asked whether Hereford (Elementary) students would not benefit from attending Huntsville High, the superintendent, in an unguarded moment, replied '[t]hey [would] be going into schools that are not accustomed to dealing with students who are below grade level.'

She also admonished the Justice Department, but only to say they were being far too lax.

"From the record, it appears that years of relative calm and inactivity have lulled the government into a habit of checking in only when the district proposes actions that require the government's review. The government should be more proactive. Based on the current record, the Court does not know when inequities in educational programs arose in the district; however, standardized test scores from 10 years ago demonstrate disparate results among racially identifiable schools. Had the government been keeping an eye on that sort of information, it could have brought it to the Court's attention more quickly and enabled the Court and the district to address the issue in a timely fashion. "

It's Deja Voodoo all over again

"If there is unfairness, it is because life itself is unfair. The unfairness is not manmade," said Hugh McInnish, at-large member of the county's Republican Executive Committee.

It's like putting Lipstick on a Pit Bull

It seems the District was successful in pleading their case that it was in the best interest of the schools in North Huntsville to remain as they are and continue the same 'feeder' pattern," wrote Showers. "Failing schools feeding into failing schools."

Garbage in garbage out.  

The history in today's quick and quiet vote may not be apparent for years to come.
It's now up to Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala to set Huntsville on this uncharted road to unitary status.

Time will tell the truth.

The actions they are taking are pure segregation. You are merging every minority failing school onto one piece of land with schools with all black names,"

As usual the #hsvboe does what it does best, Covers Their Asses ,  the taxpayers be damned.

Thanks, Board, for doing such an excellent job of listening to and representing the public. No wonder you need your own personal public relations firm working for you at our expense.
Judge Haikala should send the parties back to the drawing board on this one and tell them that the public needs to be represented at the table because clearly our Board of Education is more concerned with explaining why they can’t address public concerns than they are actually, you know, representing the public that elected them.
You cannot unify the community without involving them in the process. Attempting to do so is like destroying the village to save it. Only a Colonel would think it an “historic moment.”

Prehistoric moment is more like it.         

From the Files of They Must Think we are Stoopid in AmeriBama

An anti-war protester, with her hands painted a blood colour, confronts Condoleezza Rice

Please consider this official notice Alabama Media group must think We the Peeps are stuck on Stoopid. Therefore, I am changing the title from Stuck on Stoopid in AmeriBama, to, They  Must Think we are Stoopid in Ameribama, because every day there is something new.

The latest insult to our intelligence comes from Al.com's Charles Dean ,who, as commentator Fox says:  is either a knowledgeable muckraker who wrote this rice nonsense for clicks OR he is the dumbest individual to ever be published on this or any other website.

I vote for the later, because only a dumb individual, or someones who believes we are dumb would suggest Condoleeza Rice is a home-run hire  as the President of the University of Alabama while throwing her name out there for the following reasons:

She is an Alabama native - from Birmingham.
Translation:  She's black.

A university which once denied blacks the right to enroll, where George Wallace stood in the school house door to block black students from enrolling in 1963, would have hired its first African American president.
In a state that still struggles with race relations, that is still seen as a place where racial politics too often rule, Rice's hiring would be breathtaking.

She has been a professor and high-level administrator at Stanford, one of the nation's elite universities.

Again Fox Breaks it down:   If you want to understand how dishonest rice is, consider this: she was given and accepted tenure at Stanford and did not earn it.  That speaks volumes for her lack of character and integrity. People who had published and worked their entire careers in an effort to obtain tenure were passed over for rice who brought nothing in her career to merit the slightest consideration. NOTHING. Then as provost at Stanford she had the nerve to cause problems for the very faculty who had been passed over for tenure. I doubt you will be able to find a more divisive, disreputable, person than rice.

And then there was her time as Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor.

Should read:  And there was her time as Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor  before, and on 9/11, the date of the worst terrorist attack on American soil ever.

She is a Republican, an advantage when you turn to a Republican Congress and a Republican Legislature for federal and state dollars to benefit UA.

There's just one little problem with this meme, The President of the United States is a card carrying, Democrat who won twice and has a Veto Pin.  And is being a republican really something you want to brag about these days?

And, she is an avowed fan of Crimson Tide football. She even served on the first-ever national championship committee this fall, which put the first four teams in the first-ever national championship playoff. (Bama was one of the four, remember).

 And, we see how that turned out for Bama

 Now, I know some of you Democrats out there are not happy right now. But there are so few of you that I am going to move on.

Translation:  Democrats don't matter.  Psst Mr. Dean, I've got news for you, Democrats attend, graduate, and work for the University of Alabama too.  And, I'm pretty sure there are lots of  Democrats on the football, basketball, baseball, and track teams.  Sir.

I wonder why some white Alabamians are having a hard time separating fact from fiction in #Selma the movie?

No, I have not seen #Selma yet.  Am I going to see the movie?  I haven't decided.  As someone who lived through those dark difficult days I'm not anxious to relive them.  Yes, I know it's fiction based on factual history, but I don't know If I can relive the horror, the fear, the terrorism, the injustice, and the brutality all over again.  It's just to painful, and I don't want to be bitter, for lack of a better word. 

Evidently some (not to be confused with all) white Alabamians are finding the movie hard to watch too.  Poor George Wallace Jr., and Cecil Williamson, Selma City Council Vice-President are in a state of denial and can't separate fact from fiction.  According them the movie is full of inaccuracies and Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt needlessly changed history in order to tell what was an already compelling story in "Selma."

What inaccuracies are they talking about?  They are the ones, enabled by the white male dominated media,  trying to rewrite history. 

Here is a reminder of the shock and shame of Alabama history for those who were there, and a lesson for those who weren't there. Watch, read, listen, and learn.

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it"  Edmund Burke

#hsvboe Standing in the front door by going around to the back door.

Former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace standing in the front door of the University of Alabama June 11, 1963

There is an old saying  "If you can't get in through the front door then go around to the back door", which is exactly what Huntsville City Schools is doing, under the capable control and command of retired Colonel, turned superintendent,    Dr. Casey WARdynski in his continued quest to stand in the front door of the Huntsville City Schools.

After his presentation, the Board of Education authorized Wardynski to file the Motion for Approval of his plan. The City of Huntsville is therefore fighting the Department of Justice in court over which plan should be adopted. This motion will be decided by the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Northeastern Division. You may download the motion here.
There was no discussion of how much this litigation might cost during the board meeting. And they answered no questions from the members of the public attending Thursday’s meeting.  Our litigation happy superintendent and board are taking us into more legal action.

Remember back in June when  U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala dropped the hammer on Huntsville City Schools, saying she could find no evidence they weren't operating a dual school system?

The judge ruled late today in Huntsville's months-long desegregation dispute, clearing the way for federal attorneys to roll up their sleeves, dig deeper and and stay longer.
U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala didn't approve the city's plan to redraw school zones.
And she didn't approve the Justice Department's plan.
Instead, she appointed Chief Magistrate Judge John Ott to oversee months of mediation between the two as they examine all aspects of racial disparities across Huntsville City Schools.
She also called for appointment of a Special Master to oversee the court's ongoing fact-finding in the case.

Key words:
U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala didn't approve the city's plan to redraw school zones.
And she didn't approve the Justice Department's plan.

So how does HCS go around to the back door?  They rename existing schools after schools that haven't been built yet, and Viola!  Back door open.

The go-to phrases at Ronald E. McNair Junior High's first open house Thursday night was "Team McNair" and "Go Wildcats."

More than 200 parents, students, faculty and staff attended the event for the newly formed school, which combines students from Davis Hills and Ed White middle schools. The school will be located on the Davis Hills campus until the new facility on Pulaski Pike opens in 2016.

All vestiges of Davis Hills are gone, from its name to its color scheme to its mascot. In its place is the McNair Wildcat, prominently displayed throughout the school, and the new school colors of royal blue, black and white.

My sources tell me the facility on Pulaski Pike, you know, the site located less than half a mile from an active rock quarry,  has some ahem issues and it's become the Jemison/McNair Mud project.

THE LAND on Pulaski is>> A MARSH LAND DEVELOPMENT. The dirt is in piles as a future barrier, but the graded soil will not dry! It's going to cost an additional $4 Million Dollars to correct the foundational process of that development. It would have been better to buy a few homes near JOJ and expand the property requirement (acreage wise) and build a whole new school on the existing property then to spend undue dollars on the base of this project.

In the meantime the media keeps praising failure and calling it a success.

As they have repeatedly demonstrated, the Editorial Board of The Huntsville Times knows who they need to suck up to in this town, truth be damned.
On Thursday, September 11, 2014, the editorial board published an opinion entitled, “Transition from Textbooks to Digital Tools, as Led by Huntsville Schools, is Proper Path,” which joined in the chorus started by Dr. Wardynski, supported by Education Secretary Arne Duncan (in town on Tuesday on the public dime for meetings that excluded the public), that the only way forward in education is to continue down the failed pathway of the district’s 1:1 Digital Initiative.

 Some of us tried to tell some of y'all this superintendent would turn this process into a fraud and a farce.

In light of the blatant disregard Dr. Wardynski has for parents, students and citizens concerning transparency as evident in the comments made by Federal Judge Haikala: "The Court strongly suspects that the district has chosen not to share many of the reasons for the choices that it made as it shaped its student assignment plan."
In light of the hostile working environment that Dr. Wardynski has created which has resulted in at least 735 people choosing to leave employment with the district since August 2011;
In light of the declining standards of education that we are seeing in our finest schools as the district transitions to teaching nearly exclusively mathematics and English Language Arts;
We the undersigned respectfully request that the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education request the resignation of Dr. Casey Wardynski as superintendent effective immediately.

Can you hear us now?

#hsvboe

What looks like crazy on the left and the right on an ordinary day in Alabama Politics

 

Well, well, well.  Look what I stumbled upon on my morning Blog stroll...... those crazy republicans are trying to send crazy back to the attic.  That's right (pun intended), Radio Boy,  who enabled the birthers and crazy conspiracy theorists that have taken over the local Republican Party… is now trying to help a group called Republican Refresh defeat them at the ballot box.  Snicker

"Republican Refresh is a group Madison County residents tired of the embarrassing antics of the Madison County Republican Executive Party. We have decided to unify under the idea of getting new competent Republican Leadership on the Madison County Republican Executive Committee. For too long, us everyday Republicans have been embarrassed, ashamed, and confused by some of the current members of the Madison County Republican Executive Committee. The time for a refresh is now and starts with you voting on Tuesday June 3rd in the Republican Primary for new local leadership in the Republican Party."

RedEye's Translation:  It's time to send the crazy Aunts and Uncles who say out loud what we say behind closed doors back to the attic.  Uh...good luck with that.  Have you ever heard the saying you can't un ring a bell?

Happy Birthday Left in Alabama!

Speaking of un ringing a bell, lets mosey on over to slightly Left in Alabama, the Informed. Involved. Progressive. blog of record for Alabama politics, where Blogger Smedley  asks readers:

Talk to me.  Tell me what you like, or don't like, about the two Democratic candidates for governor this year, Parker Griffith and Kevin Bass. Parker Griffith I know is a Democrat  Republican Democrat who has served in the State Senate and the US House.  He has a history of right-wing votes. Kevin Bass I know is a former minor-league baseball player with no history of elected office.

And..

 What do you know about these two?  Why should a voter choose one over the other?  Are there reasons to vote for one of them, as opposed to against the other?

I've been giving that question a lot of thought and I'm glad Smedley posed that question, since I'm banned from Left in Alabama for life, allow me respond here in my own sandbox.  I believe in second chances, therefore I'm willing to forgive Parker Griffith for walking on the wild side, but I can't forget Parker Griffith walked on the wild side.  That said, we all make mistakes, ask former Governor George C.Wallace.  Griffith is talking the talk when it comes to jobs, health care, and education, I'm willing to give him the chance to walk the walk.  As my Daddy used to say... vote for the candidate with the smallest foot so when they kick you in your Donkey it won't hurt as bad. 

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer keeping an Eye on the Reddest of the Red States....