Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Makes Alabama Proud

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions makes Alabama proud! Not. Is anyone surprised Alabama Senator Sessions is leading the charge of the gop brigade attacking the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall?

It was Marshall who, with Howard Law School Dean Charles Hamilton Houston, his mentor, conceived and then painstakingly effectuated the jurisprudence that led to the striking down of the odious "separate but equal" doctrine that threatened to destroy this country. While many decry "activist judges" (by which they seem to mean judges who uphold civil rights for minorities and women), those judges who undermine civil rights often demonstrate the most extreme forms of activism. Judges such as those who declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was constitutionally sound turned the Constitution on its head and made a mockery of equal protection. Those activist judges subjected an entire segment of Americans to more than half a century of state-imposed degradation, subjugation and humiliation.

I'm not surprised, after all Beauregard threw the first salvo when he made sure The Azalea Trail Maids were the ONLY official representative from Alabama the Beautiful in the Inaugural parade of the first African American President. State NAACP President Eddie Vaughn tried to tell y'all....

MOBILE -- Katie Henson hopes when she and the other 49 Azalea Trail Maids stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue in their hoop dresses and matching bonnets that the nation sees them as they see themselves -- the embodiment of Southern hospitality.

For the president of the NAACP's Alabama chapter, though, 50 young women -- 39 of them white -- wearing costumes reminiscent of the time when slavery existed doesn't conjure up an image he thinks is fitting for the swearing-in of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama.

Some thought Mr. Vaughn and I were making a big deal out of nothing and accused of "attacking the young women" and told to SFTU because it was a "diverse group".

With all of the problems and challenges facing this country and President Obama, fifty Alabama women (including some African-American ones) marching in a parade wearing strange outfits and freezing their tusses off, is not high on my "to worry about" list.

Kathy said it best;

Mr. Vaughn has an undeniable point. When you see a single young woman, let alone fifty, as a neon-colored caricature of Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue, it calls to mind, well, Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue. I’m sure girls north of the Mason-Dixon line wore hoop skirts too—we’ve all seen Little Women—but the silhouette of the big ruffledy Barbie-cake skirt and parasol is forever linked in the American mind with the antebellum South. And not just any aspect of the South, but the sprawling, colonnaded white plantation house, where in the evening by the moonlight you can hear those darkies singing. And when we choose to present that as the single representative image for our state, it looks like we’re yearning to hear ‘em singing again. It just does, y’all.

Let's rewind to the Sonya Sotomayer confirmation hearing when Senator Sessions slammed her for not voting like other Puerto Ricans

This morning, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) castigated Sotomayor for not ruling with her fellow Puerto Rican colleague, conservative Judge José A. Cabranes, when she decided to deny an en banc appeal in Ricci v. DeStefano, a process in which all judges of a court hear a case (as opposed to a three-judge panel of them). Sessions seemed to indicate that people of the same ancestry should vote the same way:

Thought for the day;

I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, “Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.”

Update Seriously, though, when the Republican Senate Conference was meeting, did nobody say "if we're going to oppose the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, maybe we shouldn't have a giant racist leading the charge?" This seems like a situation in which Mel Martinez might have been able to offer a useful perspective. Or they could have called up JC Watts out of retirement. What were they thinking?

Can you say circular firing squad?

But back to 1986. During the debate over his nomination, committee Democrats questioned Sessions' prosecutorial discretion, focusing in particular on a case he pursued against three Marion, AL civil rights workers--Albert Turner, Turner's wife Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue, Jr.--whom he accused of voter fraud. Sessions was unconcerned with claims of fraud outside the so-called Black Belt, but he alleged that the trio had falsified absentee ballots in Perry County during the 1984 election. After conducting an exhaustive investigation, though, he was able to account for only a small handful of questionable examples, and even those he couldn't pin on his defendants, who were acquitted after only a few hours' deliberation.

Of course none of this is mentioned in the MSM or by the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads.
Senator Sessions was right (pun intended) on the money to question Elana Kagens qualifications, but he is dead wrong to use the confirmation hearings to call her a liar and to lead an attack on Thurgood Marshall.

Sessions is engaging in what the Supreme Court engages in, interpretation of the law based on an interpretation of the Constitution. He says it in a very self-assured way, in a way that says "I know I'm right" but that doesn't change the fact that the 2nd amendment is just as unclear as the 8th.

In Sessions' world it's only activism if he disagrees with it. I'm not a big Kagan fan, but the GOP is off the fucking rails.

What nelliah said;

This racist won't care what he says no matter how bigoted. His constituency will still elect him. That is the reason for this appointment. He will enable the other Republicans on the committee and Senate keep their hands clean. Sessions will do all the name calling innuendoing and bring up nothing but bullshit to muddy the debate. It will be easy for the Republicans to scream about what Sessions says even if is is unadulterated crap. They will have every argument they have used in the past; communist, pro-gay, pro-abortion pro-taxes, anti-religion. And many more wedge issues they are fixated on. Pitiful. Especially with the mild mannered wimps the Democrats have leading this Senate. If they once took the gloves off and said this is how it is going to be and used the reconciliation ploy as the Republicans did and only needed 51 votes I would croak! Especially for SCOTUS justice nominees.

Look away. Look away.

Why "justice is a long way off"

The wheels of justice slowly but surely turn in the case of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. The surprise decision by the Supreme Court to vacate an earlier ruling by a lower court in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may be another cog in the wheel.

On the down side, today's Supreme Court finding is, in a sense, a smokescreen. It might lead to long-delayed justice for victims of political prosecutions. But it does not address the real problem--that corrupt federal prosecutors and judges caused this grave injustice to happen.

As I said countless times before, this case is not about Don Siegelman, it's about political prosecutions and using the justice system to destroy political adversaries.

In fact the pattern of politically-instigated investigation, prosecution and recusal in this case perfectly matches the Siegelman case in the Middle District of Alabama, in which the Justice Department continues tenaciously to fight FOIA requests and even the document production demands of the United States Congress. At this point it is plain that the Justice Department is not guided by policies and principles in its posture, but by an earnest resolve to keep hidden the dark truths that an entire nation now suspects and which will come to the front burner as soon as the results of the Department’s own investigation into the misconduct of Attorney General Gonzales become public. It’s time to shine a bright and sanitizing light down the crevice of these prosecutions and let the truth be known.

What you see is what you get. What I see is a whole bunch of democrats being legally lynched by the republican controlled InJustice system.

There is the misconception that I am stoopid enough to believe ALL prosecutions are politically/racially motivated. Let me be clear, anytime I've made the allegation of political/racial prosecutions it's been in response to a SPECIFIC case we've discussed on LiA. I can understand why our conservative friends don't believe the prosecutions have a political/racial motivation, but I don't understand why my fellow liberals/progressives don't share my concern that our justice system, strike that, the Bush justice system has compromised the integrity of the rule of law, especially here in Alabama.

There is evidence, not an opinion to back up my assertion the Bush DOJ was politicized.

A new Justice Department report concludes that politics illegally influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges, and largely lays the blame on top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Monday’s report singles out the department’s former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists.

I want to have HOPE the Obama DOJ will live up to its campaign pledge of putting an end to Scooter Libby justice, Brownie incompetence and Karl Rove politics, but it's hard to have HOPE when one of its first actions is to throw out the conviction of former republican Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and let former democratic Governor Don Siegelman twist in the wind.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has dismissed Stevens' conviction for lying on Senate financial disclosure forms, and ordered a criminal contempt investigation of the prosecutors in the case for what he called the worst "mishandling and misconduct" he had seen in his 25-year career on the bench.

The dismissal comes after Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to defend the conviction against allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

As Legal Schnauzer notes;

Today's news is encouraging in the sense that the Siegelman and Minor defendants now stand a better chance of being freed. But they never should have been in prison in the first place. Ethical prosecutors, not under the influence of the corrupt Bush Justice Department, never would have brought these cases. Under the law, there was never any bribery or honest-services fraud from the outset. If prosecutors somehow did manage to bring the cases, ethical district judges would have kicked them out long before they ever reached a jury.

And brings us back to the real issue in this case;

The district courts and circuit courts have acted in an abominably corrupt manner--and yet the Supreme Court keeps remanding issues back to courts that already have proven they can't rule lawfully in these cases.

As African Americans said then and now, it's the courts stupid!. Justice is a long way off when all the votes aren't counted.

Some of the most powerful footage in Fahrenheit 9/11 comes from the Joint Session of Congress that convened on January 6, 2001. It was during this session that then Vice-President Al Gore presided over the verification of the Electoral College vote in the face of fierce Congressional protests. U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch was the first to attempt to halt the proceedings and was followed shortly thereafter by U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown.

Because no Senator would sign their inquiries into the Florida recount, the electoral vote was verified and the way was cleared for George W. Bush to be sworn in as the nation's 43rd president. Had U.S. Representatives Deutsch, Hastings and Brown been successful with their protests on January 6th, 2001, further investigations would have been conducted into the voting irregularities in Florida.

Watch and weep.

Know justice.
Know peace.
No justice.
No peace.

Can you hear me now?

Ivy League, Affirmative Action, Liberal Lions and Guns, Oh My!

Judge UW Clemon said what???

I don't think it hurts her chances in any way because she is so markedly superior to the other candidate," Clemon said.
He says with an undergrad degree from Princeton, a masters from Oxford and a law degree from Harvard, that should be all the proof constituents need to vote Sewell into office.

"Those degrees, in the first place, make her eminently qualified," Clemon said.

Psst Judge Clemon! The last time the constituents elected someone with Ivy League academic credentials he threw them under the bus. Remember?

Alabama District 7 is 61.7% African-American. 72.2% live in urban areas (primarily Birmingham, Bessemer, Tuscaloosa, Selma and Demopolis). The district’s median per capita income was $26,672.

NO group is disproportionately uninsured than Black folks, and he voted AGAINST health care reform.

Uh huh.

No group is at the BOTTOM of nearly all health care statistics like Black folks, and he voted AGAINST health care reform.

For once I have to agree with Jeff Sessions Elana Kagen Has "Serious Deficiencies"

Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said it was "conceivable" that a "filibuster might occur," should Kagan prove during the hearings to have extraordinary views.

The MSM is prepared to confirm the 3 white female for a life time appointment to the Supreme Court and ignore her lack of qualifications. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing what so ever against white women, some of my best friends are white women :), but what are black women, chopped liver? IHMO a more qualified African American woman was over looked in favor of a less qualified white woman. Is affirmative actions for white women only?

It's supposed to be the most qualified, remember? If you match Solicitor General Elana Kagens' resume side by side with 7th circuit judge Diane Woods, Woods is the most qualified. What would/could the goppers criticism of Judge Woods nomination be? That she was too black? They certainly couldn't say she wasn't qualified

.

RIP Senator Robert Byrd. The last liberal lion has left the building. Righty's and the MSM are going to make much ado about Robert Byrd's Klu Klux Klan past but the real reason they disliked Robert Byrd was because it was the past and not the present.

Byrd's political career was also dogged by his early membership in the Ku Klux Klan, which he said he joined mostly because of its anti-communist position and the political connections he could make there. But in a 1945 letter to a segregationist U.S. senator, Byrd wrote that he would never fight in the armed forces alongside blacks, and said he never wanted to "see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels."

Unlike former Alabama Governor George Wallace's death bed conversion, Robert Byrd repudiated his past and his lived his life in the true spirit of redemption, grace and mercy.

In his autobiography, Byrd wrote of his membership in the KKK: "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career, and reputation."

Thank God West Virginia has a democratic governor so we won't lose Byrd's Senate seat. For now.

The usual gop Bush Sr/Bush Jr. hack majority on the Supreme Court strikes again.

It's open hunting season in America thanks to the Republicans. And it's not the deer that's gonna get shot; It's us!

Need proof?

Good riddance. Am sick and tired of Mayor Daley and his Democratic cohorts trying to control our lives. They attempt to disarm the people so that the people have no defense against their tyranny. No more, I say!!

Lord help us.

With Democrats Like These....Update

H/T to the Christian Progressive Liberal at jackandjill politics.com for identifying the twelve democratic traitors who voted against extending unemployment benefits. As CPL notes guess which democrat is NOT on the list.

You know who’s name ISN’T ON THIS LIST? Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) – you know; the one that Harry Reid refused to certify his election until he needed HIS VOTE to get Health Care Reform passed. LOL.

WTF needs republicans with democrats like these? Twelve so called Democrats joined republicans to block extension of unemployment benefits.

The ugly secret of the unemployed is one that is well-known to the unemployed.

It is not because we’re lazy.

It is NOT because we want a free ride.

It is NOT because we feel we’re entitled. Hell, when we lose our jobs, real entitlement would be paying us unemployment at the rate of our former salaries so we can maintain our living standards until we get another job.

But we gratefully accept the 25-40% of our former income we can collect from the State. Some money is better than NO MONEY.

The ugly secret of the unemployed is the fact that we continue to be victimized for being UNEMPLOYED. When you are laid off your job; when your job is sent out of the country, courtesy of trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA: when you get fired because you will not compromise your ethics for the sake of an unscrupulous boss - you wind up collecting unemployment benefits, usually 25-40% of what you USED to earn.

WTF runs for office, strike that, WTF runs for a Congressional Seat representing the cradle of the Civil Rights movement with a *ahem* spotty voting record?

Terri Sewell has some serious gaps in her voting record. Sewell, who moved back to Alabama in 2004 after working as Wall Street securities attorney, just started voting in Alabama in 2008 according to records provided by The Alabama Secretary of State. In 2008, Sewell ran as an Obama Delegate in the 6th Congressional District of Alabama, one of the most Republican districts in the country.

Conservadems are enabling the republicans undercutting the national economic recovery and the real dems are skeered to call them out.

The same old story happens again and again. Dems in the House pass reasonable legislation, and Senate Dems dicker with centrists and Republicans over "compromises," weakening the legislation step by step over many weeks, only to find zero Republican support in the end.

The public has no idea what is going on, and just blames Democrats, who appear to be in charge in DC. Now it is happening gain with vital public spending for national economy recovery -- state aid, unemployment relief, and adjustments in taxes and Medicare payments. This legislation is not just important to this or that group. It matters for keeping any semblance of national economic growth going, for creating and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Whats the matter with Democrats in Alabama you ask? Take a look in the mirror. The Alabama Democratic party has been infiltrated. That's what's wrong with the democratic party in Alabama. You know the drill. Find an effective liberal group/blog. Pick a fight. Have the groups pick sides. And who wins in the end? Not democrats that's for sure. What quooarr said;

If people listened to the power brokers all the time Joe Sestak wouldn't be the nominee in Pennsylvania and Elaine Marshall wouldn't be the nominee in N.C. From time to time Democrats have to rise up and take their own party back. That time is long overdue in Alabama.

Amen quaoar. Amen. It's time for all good democrats to rise up and OUR party back.

It's time for Democrats to WTFU!

There's a saying that goes, "When you settle for less, you usually get less than what you settle for." Well, that pretty much describes those of us who've watched the republicanization of the Democrat Party over the past 25 years.

What it's gotten us is "Democrats" who vote for any hair-brained scheme Republicans can come up with (NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.), who weaken healthcare options to appease their lobbyist friends, who vote against unemployed(as happened the other night) and others who will completely jump ship when they feel the political winds are right, i.e., Shelby and Griffith.

It's given us a weak party that doesn't know how to fight back and can't win for losing, even when the other side gifts them a winning hand of cards. Had enough?

I've had more than enough! I want my HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in back!

Redeye's Week in Review

Who Shall Represent the Pettus Bridge in Congress, Corporate Attorney Artur, I mean Terri Sewell or Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Smoot? That is the question voters in AL CD 7 will answer in the democratic primary on July 9. It's no secret I consider Terri Sewell to be the female version of the previous CD 7 Congress Critter and after reading the concerns raised in this informative diary I have agree with the author:

unless I were to see some solid answers to the concerns I have raised, my gut instinct is that Smoot would be a more loyal member of both the Democratic majority, and the Congressional Black Caucus, and would thus serve her constituents better.

Welcome to my Blog roll Wanted Alabama Democrats.

Speaking of the soon to be former ex CD 7 Congress Critter, Artur Davis wants to become a white collar criminal defense lawyer.

U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, said that after he leaves Congress he wants to practice law as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer, possibly in Washington, D.C.

I think it's important to define white collar crime just to be clear;

lawbreaking by salaried worker: theft, fraud, embezzlement, or some other nonviolent lawbreaking act perpetrated by a salaried employee or senior manager of a company or organization

I think it's also important to identify some infamous white collar criminals

Speaking of white collar criminals, what do Enron's Jeffery Skilling and former Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman have in common? Well, the Supreme Court just ruled prosecutors *ahem* erred;

MONTGOMERY — Attorneys for a former Alabama governor convicted of bribery and other charges say a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a white collar crime law could lead courts to throw out at least some of counts against him and a former Health South CEO.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that prosecutors erred in using the "honest services" law in the prosecution of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

Ex-Gov. Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy were convicted in 2006 of bribery and other charges in a federal government corruption case.

Siegelman attorney Vince Kilborn said the "honest services" law was also used in the prosecution of both men and that the ruling might encourage the court to look favorably on their appeals.

Karma is a b$%ch isn't it? Isn't is ironic O-I-L is washing up on the shores of all the reddest of the red states and they are crying out for some big guvermint aide? What happened to drill baby drill and personal responsibility? I wonder if voters who live on Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida smell the coffee and will stop voting republican to bite off their nose to spite their face?
Naaaah. That would be too much like right. :)

Speaking of those crazy republicans, they KILLED the BILL extending unemployment benifits last night. I don't get it, republicans are anti extending umemployment benifits but don't have a problem funding never ending W-ar. What do they expect people to do? Desperate times make sesperate people do desperate things.

President Obama finally found some a$$ to kick, but I think we need to get our sons and daughters a$$es out of Iraq and Afghanistan before more are killed, wounded or maimed for life. Bring our troops home. NOW. Send the tea baggers, republicans and the media to stop the momentum of the Taliban, stay the course, fight em over there so we won't have to fight em over here blab blab blah blah.

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson, I haven't figured out how to em bed video yet (hint hint) but I want to close with words from one of e Micheal Jackson last songs,
They don't really care about us.
Gone to soon, RIP Michael Jackson.