Birmingham Blues

I apologize to my daughters for what may happen over the next thirty years. Samuel Alito has been confirmed by a 58-42 vote. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Jim Jeffords (I-VT) voted no. Robert Byrd (D-WV), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Tim Johnson (D-SD), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) voted yes. Geez, I guess I [...]

Blogenfreude has a list of the nineteen Democrat senators who voted to end the filibuster of the Alito nomination yesterday. As I noted in the comments there, I wonder how many of them will go on to vote against Alito’s confirmation.
I guess it’s possible that some of these senators actually think Alito will make [...]

Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. I was actually quite pleased to note that I’ve already seen two of the Best Picture contenders, Brokeback Mountain and Crash, and that I really want to see the other three, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich. It’s a rare year when that happens.
In [...]

Coretta Scott King has passed away at 78.

I know I’m a little behind the times here, but scheduling “grown-up” movies is hard with two kids. My friend Renee and I finally saw Brokeback Mountain this afternoon. We really need to stop going to movies together; the last two we saw were Hotel Rwanda and Crash, and I’ve barely recovered from [...]

On Wednesday, Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform and Greater Birmingham Ministries sponsored a “Let the People Vote” rally on the steps of the state capitol building. It’s not easy to draw a crowd on a weekday, but there were around 350 people in attendance. There were also boxes full of petitions signed by [...]

This week saw a couple of great events here in Alabama. The first was here in Birmingham. Rev. James Evans, pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church and author of the syndicated column “Faith Matters”, spoke as part of the Over the Mountain Democrats’ “A Conversation With….”

A Big Crowd Gathered To Hear Jim Evans [...]

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-oh, really?) thinks the Senate has too much to do right now to consider filibustering the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Hey, lady, this guy will likely sit on the highest court in the land for the next thirty years or so. I consider that pretty damn [...]

If you’ve been reading here long, you know I’m a big supporter of rewriting Alabama’s obscenely racist and ridiculously unwieldy constitution. The constitution was ratified by a fraudulent vote in 1901, and its stated intent was to disenfranchise everyone who wasn’t white, male, and rich. It’s been amended ad nauseum, and quite a [...]

The Birmingham News reports today that Richard Scrushy threatened to fire HealthSouth’s investment bankers if they didn’t make a substantial donation to then-Gov. Don Siegelman’s lottery campaign. Scrushy of course claims that this is just “business as usual”.
Former HealthSouth Chief Financial Officer Mike Martin testified that Scrushy initiated the quest for a $250,000 donation from [...]