And on the 7th Day of the Trump Presidency, Collinsville, Alabama goes national

       This morning on NPR 1a program newly elected Republican DeKalb county Alabama school superintendent Jason Barnett held forth for about ten minutes on his 16 year experience with undocumented Hispanics in the Collinsville School. My Mother is a 1939 alum of the school and my Grandfather James Columbus Jordan ran as a Lincoln Republican in the 2nd decade of the 20th Century for school superintendent.

    He was soundly defeated.

     This morning Jason did very well, all though a little choppy in his presentation about getting to know the personal stories of the multitude of Hispanic children that have crossed his path in the classroom and as assistant principal at Collinsville School. But after the host went to a fellow on the border in Texas, Jason dropped the ball. He wasn't asked and failed to mention the Collinsville soccer team, all Hispanic, who won the state championship in 2013, nor the travail of standout player on that team Jorge Avila Segura who was undocumented when he graduated.

    Jorge was salutatorian his senior year and wrote a public letter to Governor Bentley about his ordeal. His teammates say half the team that won the championship in 2013 were undocumented.

    Nor did the story of 2015 valedictorian Maria Moreno get told. She too was undocumented when she graduated. Both she and Jorge are now citizens and Jorge just completed college at Hardeman Freedman.

    Last fall in Jorge Segura's presence, Supe Barnett--he was sworn in January 1 this year making him supe longer than Trump has been President and Jeff Sessions will likely be attorney General--Jason, Dr. Barnett (20 odd years my junior) told Jorge and me given his experience in Collinsville, he is stongly inclined to entertain the idea students of good scholarship and character should be awared citizenship upon graduation from the public schools.

   Public schools can be extreme vetting, the kind Donald Trump adores. Let's bring Jorge Segura and Maria Moreno to Washington DC, on air at NPR 1a, Morning Joe on NBC and Meet the Press, and with UMC Bishop Willimon of Duke and North Alabama show Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions what Democracy Looks like.

    These kids are two of the greatest Americans Ive met, and they have a lifetime in front of them. Let's make America worthy of what they have to offer!!!!!

    PS, I also want to say on the 6th day of the Trump presidency, LJ Peak of Gaffney South Carolina, my hometown, scored his 1,000 ndth point for Georgetown in a game against Creighton in the Verizon Center in DC. Too Bad President Hillary Clinton and what woulda been her predecessor Barack Obama could not be there for the game.

Yellowhammer's Cliff Simms in Trump White House

     Cliff Simms is the son of a fundamentalist Baptist preacher whose right wing luck and pluck has landed him in the Trump White house, as some kind of communications and policy strategist. My experience reading his site and listening to his mid day radio chat on Crawford Broadcasting WYDE out of Bham and Cullman was mostly playful, but now very serious. He is something of the latest incarnation of Lee Atwater, whose good hearted ignorance may make him even more sinister and dangerous.

     His circles as Ive come to understand Bama in the last 30 years make him a child of the fledgling Birch Society and Baptist politics of the late Albert Lee Smith, a bane of James Dunn and the Baptist Joint Committee on Church State Politics. It was Smith that everything suggests was part of the cabal of Crawford Broadcasting and birch society fundamentalism that held an Inquistion for Samford President Tom Corts in 93.

    Now Simms in his mid 30's best I can ascertained has cuted himself up hardwired to the Rick and bubba radio personalities of Shades Mtn Church and all are networked to Baptist Church of the Highlands and the 14 campuses, and mega church FBC Gardendale part of Adrian Rogers shadowy legacy.

     Yellowhammer and the radio program show signs of being underwritten by dark money of the NRA. The midday radio program on WYDE where his co host Scott Beason of FBC Gardendale, a failed candidate for US Congress, as well as Rick and bubba count among chief sponsor 21/31 arms of Morris Alabama, Faith Freedom and Firearms.

    It was Bircher Albert Lee Smith's widow Eunie Smith of the Bama chapter of Concerned Women of America who first introduced Scott Beason to Kansan Kris Kobach who wrote the Bama immigration bill that has propelled Jeff Sessions to an attorney general nominee. Duke Chaplain and UMC Bishop in Bama at the time Will Willimon called Sessions out on the matter in Jesus name comparing Sessions and Beason's immigration bill to the fugitive slave law. Google Willimon Repents, ethicsdaily.

     As never before the NRA dark money has a home in the Trump White House, Money and populist strategy sanctified in the fundamentalist Baptist faith.

      Simms and Rick and Bubba this past year had on air dust ups with SBC ERLC's Russ Moore.

      Simms as Atwater legacy goes has perfected his Baptist piety in the line of race baiting evolution Atwater spotlighted in Wuthnow's Rough Country. And the SBC of Bama no longer has the tools to speak to such chicanery and Biblical illiteracy.

    Rough profile here, maybe the New Yorker, Oxford American Magazine,  the Rolling Stone can dig deeper into this aspect this one of many poisonous pits of Trump's America.

Simms in his own words:

  http://yellowhammernews.com/politics-2/cliff-sims-accepts-senior-communications-job-trump-white-house/

Kate Campbell on the Fox Tour, Rome, Ga to Easley SC

      Kate Campbell will be taking an unwitting Fox Family tour in a few days with an event at FBC  Rome Ga on Jan 28 and the following Saturday Feb 4 at my sister's church in Easley SC. My Dad was raised in Rome where my grandfather moved in 1929 and died in 1979. My Dad left in the late 40s but went back at least once a year the rest of his life, and we lived there in and out from fall of 81 to October 1986.

     Cousins still live there and two sisters came back to Rome for the ending 30 years of their lives. Aunt Virginia was there all the time.

      The Billy Foxxes grew up in Gaffney. Kate has performed in several churches in the Upstate over the years but this is a first for a church of active family members, in Easley.

    Rome is the home of the parents and grandparents of Isabel Wilkerson, the first black woman to win the National Book award in Nonfiction. She has roots in the Thankful Baptist Church about a half mile from where Kate will be performing, and less the three football fields from where my parents were married in 49.

   But it is in Easley I hope Kate doubles down on an intro to her magnificent cover of Kris Kristofferson's My God They Killed Him, about Martin King, Mahatma Ghandi and Jesus Christ.....On the Road to Glory.

     There are a lot of grand figures with ties to the Civil Rights Movement from nearby Furman, and I'm hoping my friend Jim Pitts, longtime Chaplain at Furman, the son of Richard Nixon's Barber; I'm hoping Pitts is there.

    Furman is the alma mater of Marshall Frady, whose biography of King is exquisite. Like Kate and me, his Dad was a Baptist preacher. At the request of Will Campbell, the only white man to be at the Lorraine Motel the night of Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis, Pitts and his great friend TC Smith read a eulogy of  Campbell for Frady when Frady died in 2004.

     TC Smith flew from Berkely California in 1965 to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge with King and the Civil Rights workers. Later Smith was longtime member of the religion faculty at Furman. Marching with Smith that day was another Furman grad, Martin England, a founder of the Koinonia Farms in Americus Ga with Clarence Jordan.

    England is widely known to be the major courier of King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail to the rest of the world. When he died another Furman professor and champion of human rights, Albert Blackwell said: "Martin England had an appetite for justice!"

    These unsung white folks foot soldiers, mostly lost in the crowd maybe with the exception of Campbell and Frady outside the Furman community deserve recognition, a newly charged telling of their story.  I hope Kate makes notice when she sings at Easley for a new generation. I know some of those children who will be in the audience that night. They need to hear.

Morning Joe, Finebaum and Jim from Tuscaloosa

       I was on hold for 27 minutes yesterday waiting to get on the Finebaum show then bailed out. Was going for a twofer Thursday as I had gone national earlier in the morning with a callin to NPR One A show that replaced Diane Rehm.

    Was gonna talk to Finebaum about the malaprop--had it been a word instead of a photo-- of the "master game day psychologist Nick Saban"--use of the Ali/Sonny Liston photo. See blog below.

     So I took a walk and came back to Finebaum later. Jim from Tuscaloosa was on as ignorant as ever as in the Randy Newman song don't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He and New Yorker David Remick's friend--that would be Finebaum--were talking about Bama grad Joe Scarborough and Jim was talking about how he is smarter than Morning Joe and Mika.

     Well here is what they don't know. Joe Scarborough like Senator Richard Shelby, the Bama "Legend" ain't all that when you compare the lot (Jeff Sessions, Mike Hubbard, Bama SBC Prez Rick Lance) to the Great Bama Republican Judge Frank Johnson.

     Joe of FBC Pensacola where a good Baptist from Ohatchie Barry Howard is pastor, got his comepuppance, the real story on the GOP since Reagan in Garry Wills piece in the Ny Rev of Books a couple years ago.

     And the Bleaching policy of the Bama GOP, that is what Greg Sankey, Finebaum Morning Joe and Don't know his ass from a hole in the ground Jim from Tuscaloosa need to be talking about.

    Here are three links including my comment on 1a show of NPR in the last five minutes yesterday.

     Finebaum, Ryan McGhee has my contact info. Give me a call. I'm good for an hour.


     https://newrepublic.com/article/119019/civil-rights-movement-going-reverse-Alabama

http://the1a.org/about

Have Senator Shelby staff help you find this article online. The second half the half the teaser deleted is the guts of the matter, about Lee Atwater's race strategies that lead to Bama Sessions and Hubbard Bleacing in the New Republic piece above.

     Time for a sit down with David Remnick,  Coach Saban, Greg Sankey. Jim from Tuscaloosa can listen on the radio.

     http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/01/09/can-he-save-gop-itself/

Sonny Liston's Revenge; Condi Rice wrong about Sessions

        Of the blanket coverage on the many ESPN affiliates including the SEC network Monday all day long before the Natty, one segment that surfaced and caught my eye was the picture of Cassius Clay Ali standing over Sonny Liston in the second fight, the Knockout. Ali is standing victorious over his foe. ESPN says Nick Saban used that pic to inspire his Crimson Tide for the second game against Clemson. He wanted there to be no second guesses, wanted to defeat Clemson two times in a row so the Tide in Playoff era could be as great as Ali.

    A hundred fifty pounder from Socastee High School from Myrtle Beach South Carolina Hunter Renfrow and his friend Deshaun Watson of Hall County Georgia, next door to Forsyth--see Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root--let Nick Saban and the "Mighty" Crimson Tide know they are not Ali. The Bear is Dead, Saban is almost 70, Kiffin is in Florida and It is Over!!!

     And who is Nick Saban to invoke Ali. I had a conversation with his Rhodes Scholar nominee Greg McElroy and Paul Finebaum on the radio couple years ago about the Bear and George Wallace. Now we have Nick and Bama legend Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions in the Age of Trump.

   Nick Saban fails where Bear Bryant did as the New Republic article Farewell to the Bear suggests. Finebaum said it was one of the best articles ever written about Bama's storied Football tradition. Greg McElroy was taking notes.

     Mohammed Ali was not silent on matters that Nick Saban avoids. There is no evidence that Saban has engaged Richard Shelby the UBama Legend and Greg Sankey SEC Commish on this "Elephant" in the Room. Saban was not worthy to invoke Ali as a totem to inspire this years lackluster--without Kiffin--team.

   Condi Rice is on the National Committee with Archie Manning and friends to choose the final four. Stay with me, I'm going somewhere.

      Saban has his hands full. He is to be congratulated for his Million dollar contribution to St Francis Catholic Student Ministries in Tuscaloosa. My guess is most of them voted against Donald Trump and are against Jeff Sessions for Atty General.

    Condi Rice has some explaining to do the U Bama faculty. Jeff Sessions is opposed by United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon on immigration reform. The Republican party in the state of Alabama is a "bleaching" party--see Mike Hubbard in the Zengerle article in New Republic--weaking the future political power of minorities by gerrymandering. How does Condi Rice explain that to the extended families of the football players of the Tide and Auburn War Eagles.

       Where is Jeff Sessions on the Daley book Rattfucked? and where is he on Kathy Cox's book Dixie's Daughters on the Daughters of the Confederacy? Where was Condi Rice's conversation with Rosa Parks on that one.

      A Statue is one thing. Living extended families of Derrick Henry and Reuben Foster and Jaylen Hurst is another.

      If Jeff Sessions had been in the courtroom in 65 instead of Judge Frank Johnson, a truly great Alabama Republican unlike Sessions and Shelby; Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights marchers would still be in Selma waiting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

   In her heart Condi Rice must know that and she should have that conversation with Archie Manning, Greg McElroy, Paul Finebaum, Nick Saban and Kenny Stabler's children.

     Greg Sankey SEC Commissioner said in Hoover back in August he is open to this conversation. Let's hope it's not too late.

     God Bless Deshaun Watson and Hunter Renfrow. There have been some honorable players on the Tide this year, but the state of Alabama in this Trump moment did not deserve two in a row.

    God's Will Was done in the last second in Tampa Early Tuesday morning. I believe that.

     

How does the Most Intellectual of GHS Class of 71 Change a Flat Tire?

       First he calls every friend he ever thought he had  in NE Bama to see if they will change it for him. Since he has less friends than he used to after he got voted out of the local Babdist church, he lets flat sit in front yard for three weeks while he goes to SC for Christmas holidays
   If Flat hasn't fixed itself while Steevie is out of town. Steevie takes Monday off on return cause its rainin, catches a ride to town to get a hamburger. Tuesday is a rest day and on Wednesday he rides his bike to town, but the Mexican cannot understand him so he rides to Railroad park. A Republican passes and says Steevie should try some WD 40 overnight. Maybe that was Tuesday. On Wednesday  Steevie catches another ride to town to see Duke and Villanova basketball on TV.

  On Thursday Stevie checks the wd 40 as the Republican suggested and sure enough it works. Steevie Jacks up Car and takes tire up for friend to retrieve and take to Ft payne where a woman has left some at kind price.

   Steevie doesn't have a spare so four days of 2017 are spent hustling.

     Friend brings back tire late, I mean real late Thursday night and places on bolts for Stevie to tighten early Friday morn and let Jack down.

   On Friday before the winter snow storm Steevie Goes to the Public library near the Cracker Barrel for Friday Cod.

   And that is how we roll, how the elite changes flat tires in Bama, in Donald Trump's America.

    God Bless the United States of America.

   Oh yeah, yes I did see 30 minutes of Netflix piece Barry and I'm proud of it.

   Happy New Year, ever damn one of yall.

  Go Tigers, Bama needs a little humility.