1819: Alabama’s first constitutional convention is convened in Huntsville. Less than a month later the forty-four delegates, representing twenty-two counties, adopted what would become known as the Constitution of 1819, the first of six Alabama constitutions.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

1920: William Crawford Gorgas, U.S. Surgeon General, 1915-1918, and world-renowned expert on tropical diseases, dies in London while en route to South Africa. Gorgas was born in Mobile in 1854 and served as the Chief Sanitation Officer in Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War and during the building of the Panama Canal, 1904-1914. In those tropical climates Gorgas saved hundreds of lives by successfully eliminating mosquito breeding grounds and thereby controlling the spread of yellow fever.

1927: Grover C. Hall, Sr., editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, publishes the cornerstone editorial in a series of pieces that won him the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The editorials, directed against the Ku Klux Klan, called for Alabama politicians and citizens to take a stand against Klan violence. Hall especially reprimanded Gov. Bibb Graves, a Klan member, urging him to take measures to end the countless floggings of white and black men and women across the state.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

Alabama Senator Charles Bishop was the keynote speaker at 2008 Conference of the Council of Conservative Citizens. For those that don’t know, the CCC is an interesting Christian conservative organization. They have 14 principles — some of them are more than okay. I like the Bill of Rights too, even the ones that are out of favor currently. Other principles, however, are a little more than sublimely racist. Some of the highlights:

• They believe the US is a “European” [white] country and should remain that way.
• They oppose any and all Mexican immigration (as well as any other non-European immigrants).
• They oppose interracial marriage.
• There shouldn’t be histories, monuments, and cultural items that show anything but a European perspective of US history and culture.
• They oppose “multicultural” and “Afrocentric” education in schools.

I could probably do ten long posts about the ridiculous nature of the CCC, but I’ll just assume that they’re a thinly-veiled racist organization. And a philosophically inconsistent one in my opinion.

Here’s where some reader is going to stop and tell me that they have the right to believe in whatever they want. Yeah of course they do. They can be as racist and backwards as they want. And I can write a post saying they’re racist and backwards and that Charles Bishop might be racist and backwards for associating with them.

Bishop was invited to the group by CCC founder and Alabama leader Leonard “Flagpole” Wilson. Mr. Wilson got his nickname for when he worked against the admission of Autherine Lucy as the first black student at the University of Alabama. He climbed up a flagpole shouting “Keep Bama White!”

This isn’t the first time people have suspected Bishop is really a racist prick. Last year, Bishop temporarily blocked a simple, non-binding resolution that apologized for the Alabama government’s role in slavery. During that drama, we were reminded of a near-fight between Bishop and Senator Hank Sanders in the 1980s (he called the black senator a “boy”). Of course, most people know Bishop from when he punched another fellow senator, Lowell Barron, last year as well.

There is the possibility that Bishop didn’t know that the CCC was a racist organization when he accepted the invitation to speak. The name is innocuous enough, after all. Current Libertarian Presidential candidate and former Congressman Bob Barr spoke to the group in 1993, later saying he had no idea what the group really stood for and found their views repugnant after he learned.

But that’s not very likely. The CCC is fairly well known in Alabama, and Alabama politicians are probably especially aware of the organization’s controversy after Republican Civil Appeals Judge Terri Thomas got into hot water for speaking to them recently.

So that’s Charles Bishop, the hero of the Alabama Republican Party.

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This ran today in the Gadsden Times as a letter to the editor.

Make your vote a personal one. In those final seconds before we mark our ballots, we have to ask ourselves: “Can I personally trust a candidate who placed his hand on the Quran when he was sworn in as a United States senator?” “Can I personally support a candidate who refuses to pledge the flag that so many Americans have fought and died under?” “Can I personally vote for a candidate who won’t even place his hand over his heart when others are pledging the flag?”

Does America personally choose a president whom our enemies have declared to be our greatest hope? If this is the caliber of person you want to have wandering, lost in the tall grass of world leadership, then vote for Barack Obama. If you want a battle tested American to lead us, who honors God, flag and country — this country — then vote for John McCain.

Jim Lackey

Attalla

Bloggers Note: I don’t put my hand on my heart during the Start Spangled Banner either, and Obama usually does. Kind of a habit — Marines don’t do that. If they’re in covered uniform (with a hat), they salute. If they’re not in uniform or uncovered, they stand at attention. Yeah, I know. I’m not longer a Marine — I don’t stand at attention so much anymore. I just kinda stand. Oh and this too.

• H/T Danner and Mac

They say blogs have transformed politics. I think that’s overstating it a bit. Blogs are a useful component in the way the “new media” works, but most of the really useful power of the Internet is the shear amount of data that is available. It’s probably safe to say that blogs are simply most people’s online analysis of that data. Anyone can start a blog, even for free, but the best bloggers use at least some of the tremendous amount of data available online to give you a first-level analysis.

Technically, most people don’t use much “raw” data. Raw data is the scattered numbers and words that just happened to be laying around. This has to be processed, or arranged, in a way that makes the data easy to understand. Still, there’s no shortage of free data online, especially when it comes to politics. VoteSmart.org is an old staple of free data. If you’re interested in how NARAL rates Senator Jeff Sessions’ pro-life voting record, you can just go to his “Issue Rating” page on that website (hint: they give him a 0). OpenSecrets.org will show you where candidates for national office get their campaign money. If you’re looking for something even more raw, you can always browse the roll call votes at the US House and the US Senate.

Alabama also has some resources available online. The Secretary of State has scanned copies of every FCPA report available online. If you’re interested in roll call votes from Montgomery, theAlabama legislature made their computer system ALISON available online a while ago. Both of these tools are commonly used by bloggers, pundits, policy analyists, you name it. But there’s a problem.

A human being can read the FCPA reports — I read them way too much, for instance. I can also navigate my way through ALISON to get a roll call vote on a particular bill or resolution. Neither resource, however, are easily read by a computer program.

Despite prevailing philosophy, computers are not smarter than humans. They are, however, much faster at processing large amounts of data in a pre-determined way, as long as that data is presented in a simple, consistent format. If a computer were able to easily read the data available in FCPA reports and roll call votes, it would be a simple matter to process that data into a meaningful presentation.

Technical part is mostly over. This is something I and a few others have been considering for a while now. If FCPA reports were available to me in an electronic format, even something as simple as an Excel file, I could process that data in a way for it to be useful to Alabmians. Would you like to make sure everyone candidate’s PAC income correlates to every PAC’s contributions? With electronically processed data and a simple computer script, I could check that in about 4 seconds. Who had the highest percentage of their campaign contributions from individuals? Another 4 seconds. How many individual political contributions were between $100 and $200? That might take 8 seconds.

It’s a similiar story with ALISON. Even though the roll call votes are electronic, individuals don’t have access to the raw electronic data. And the website is designed in such a way so that it’s difficult for a computer to navigate through it. If I had access to the database, however, or even a copy of it, we could re-arrange the data in a more meaningful way. Let’s say, for example, that you want to see your state senator’s voting record on every local bill in Jefferson County? With the way ALISON is set up, you’d have to find and look up the complete roll call vote on every bill in Jefferson County, scroll to your senator, and then you’d probably have to write it down to remember.

ALISON was designed for legislators, not curious constituents, so it makes sense that it would be limited in that way. If the state were to make the database available, however, people like me could re-process it in a way that would be more helpful for consitutents.

And that’s what I want to do — well, me and a few others. We want to create a website that will present this information for free. Open government and all that. In order to do it, though, we really need two things. First, we need electronic FCPA reports. Representative Cam Ward has sponsored legislation recently that would require Alabama candidates raising at least $100,000 to file an electronic report, and of course it hasn’t gone very far. Second, we need some sort of access to the ALISON database. This information could either be “live” by allowing people to register for a restricted, read-only account, or it could be provided at the end of the session as a database backup file.

It’s really not asking for much. It would cost the state a little bit of money to establish an electronic FCPA system, but not much. I’d be happy to help the Secretary of State’s office look into it. The database access or backup file should be virtually free. The low expense would be repaid as a government service many times over.

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1915: Statewide prohibition goes into effect in Alabama, five years before nationwide prohibition. The sale and regulation of alcohol has often been a bitter issue in Alabama politics, and the 1915 ban was first vetoed by Gov. Charles Henderson, but the legislature overrode his veto. Despite prohibition, 386 illegal stills were seized in Alabama in 1915.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

In some Alabama counties like Perry and Hale, there is a lot of voter fraud going on. The vast majority of the fraud is being executed by or on behalf of Democratic candidates. Apparently, I’m now a right-wing nutjob partisan hack. Oh, and a large number of the fraudulent ballots are coming from black voters. Apparently I’m also now a racist.

At least that what you might believe after reading this piece by New Hounds, a website of people who apparently watch Fox News all day so they can pick clips to attack their credibility.The target in the short piece was an interview Fox News gave Alabama Attorney General Troy King about the voter fraud investigations in some Alabama counties.

Eric Shawn interviewed the Alabama Attorney General, Troy King, who claimed people have been selling their votes. When Shawn finally asked him to identify the Party responsible, King said Democratic counties were involved but stopped short at flatly blaming one party. However, the message was clear.

What message… the truth? In the next paragraph:

King noted that the investigation into voter fraud has been going on for four years. He pinpointed Perry County as most problematic and there was a quick clip of voters walking into the polls assumed to be Perry County’s and all were African-American.

Since King’s point was that voter fraud was being executed by use of absentee ballots, how does the racial makeup of the voters at the polls present anything except a short visual to break the monotony of the interview?

I’m not a big fan of Troy King or Fox News. I’ve got my reasons for both preferences, but I’m not going to be a hack. Nothing in the interview was biased. In fact, I’ll credit King for being professional about it and only grandstanding a little (it’s rare enough to impress me).

The investigation is ongoing, so we don’t have all the details of it. However, we do know that the biggest problem in the last primary election was in Perry County.Voter turnout in that primary was around 50% in Perry County. You can’t credit that to the Presidential election as Alabama selects it’s party’s Presidential favorites in February. Statewide, voter participation in the June 3 election was around 14 percent. The number of absentee ballots cast were even more surprising. More than 25% of all votes cast in Perry County were cast by absentee ballot. The reason is simple. If you’re buying or coercing a vote, there’s a guarantee of payback if you watch someone fill out the ballot in person.

I don’t have many hard facts on hand to back up the claim that Democratic candidates are largely responsible for these cases, but from people I’ve talked to, voter fraud is simply a way of life in Black Belt politics. Decades ago, it was performed largely to establish white supremacy (although still by Democratic candidates). Today, the racial justification isn’t there as much (at least in voter fraud), but there is an established political machine that uses voter fraud as just another electioneering tactic.

Here’s the thing — it isn’t that Democrats are more or less likely to engage in voter fraud. It’s just a voter fraud county  and a Democratic county. Let’s not forget that the most recent case happened during the primary. It certainly wasn’t Democrats using these tactics against Republicans. It was one clique of Democrats using these tactics against another clique of Democrats. This is a good page from the Democracy Defense League about how absentee ballots have been used in Hale County.

And of course a majority of voters at a random polling place in Perry County are going to be black. African Americans make up around 70% of the demographic.

So I guess I’m turning into a true Southerner. Some national website starts trying to judge Alabama and I get all defensive about how those outsiders don’t understand.

1928: As mandated by the legislature, convict leasing ends in Alabama. While many southern states leased convicts to private industry as laborers, Alabama’s program, begun in 1846, lasted the longest, and for much of that time the notorious system was a key revenue source for the state.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

I’m sure you’ve seen me posting on here, but the truth is that I’ve been out of it. Senior design project, graduation, moving to a new city, starting a new career, etc. etc.

The truth is that I’ve been only half here since probably around Christmas. I’m sure you’ve all noticed. Where I used to compete with Danny for new revelations about Alabama politics, I recently have been deferring everything to Danny. Where I used to have funny and witty things to say about the news (at least I thought so), I recently have been deferring all humor and wit to Mac. Both have great blogs by the way. Brian has another one that’s been impressive.

I sometimes considered ending Daily Dixie altogether. If my domain name renewal had come up in the last 6 months, I probably would have just let it expire. In 2006 and most of 2007, this was a pleasure. I really enjoyed it. But when real life started demanding more and more of my time, it started feeling like a chore. I did indeed feel obligated, which is why I continued to throw up posts during all but the most busy of times. But it just wasn’t the same. Instead of a hobby, blogging became the residual obligation of a once-fun endeavor.

Am I ready to go full force yet? I hope so, but I don’t know. I might be so far behind that it isn’t worth it. One possible problem is that I have a real job now. I used to get a lot of blogging done between classes. I can’t really blog at work — both for ethical and practical reasons.

Basically, I’m done with this being a chore. I need to decide what I’m doing with this thing. Am I going to go full force like I did before? Maybe a longer daily post? A weekly post? Well, that wouldn’t work thanks to the name of my website.

Governor Riley’s Finance Director wants to use the Alabama Trust Fund so we can give money to Volkswagen.

Danny’s been following this well as usual. It’s not a very good narrative for Jay Love’s bid for Congress. It came out last week that national Republicans were funding and supporting his campaign for the GOP runoff against State Senator Harri Anne Smith.

That would be a good thing, but then all but two of Harri Anne Smith’s Republican comrades in the Senate endorsed her over Jay Love, who is a state representative. The two senators who didn’t endorse Smith have remained neutral. The Democrats also seem to like Harri Anne Smith, probably because she would be easier to beat in a general election.

The Republican nominee will face Bobby Bright in November.

The Socialism Council of Alabama discusses some things.

Some random, offbeat blogger features Troy King. Wonder if he’s read Troy’s Greatest Hits.

1846: The 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment organizes in Mobile to fight in the Mexican War. Alabamians volunteered in large numbers to fight against Mexico when war came over the annexation of Texas, but only this single regiment, a battalion, and several independent companies actually were received into federal service from the state. During its eleven months of service, the 1st Alabama lost only one man in battle but 150 died from disease.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

2007: Former governor Don Siegelman and ousted Healthsouth CEO Richard Scrushy are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller to lengthy prison terms for their convictions on bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. Siegelman is sentenced to seven years, four months in prison, three years on probation, restitution of $181,325, a $50,000 fine and 500 hours of community service. The judge sentenced Scrushy, the founder of HealthSouth Corp., to six years, 10 months in prison, three years of probation, 500 hours of community service, a $150,000 fine and $267,000 in restitution.

• Most historical information provided by the ADAH.

So apparently I’m thinking about this thing all wrong. Curtis Palmer seems to think I have a too-pessimistic attitude about the possibility of the 2020 Olympics coming to Birmingham. The Terminal also chimes in.

I also stumbled across this post over on Daily Dixie late last night. While some of the things in the list are true, maybe having a goal as unattainable as hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics could start to move us in the  direction we want to go in. It would also force us to begin to look at taking ownership of some of the bigger issues in our community ourselves as citizens, an idea whose time I believe has finally come in The Magic City. Why sit back and wait for someone else to do something when you can take initiative yourself?

That’s just too soft for me. I’m a practical person. I listed10 reasons why I didn’t think Birmingham would be selected for the 2020 Olympics, but I’d like for one of them to really sink in with people.

10. The entire idea is just a way to get people behind the idea of a domed stadium

That’s the truth and the problem. For the longest time I’ve thought the biggest issue with Birmingham’s political leadership is that they’re too worried about schemes. A domed stadium is just the biggest example. All of this political effort and taxpayer money is spent on these schemes to the detriment of essential services.

When has anyone come up with a sensible scheme to improve the roads in Birmingham? What about crime? Last I heard, the most crime-ridden areas of Birmingham aren’t even well-lit at night. Birmingham police officers make less money for more dangerous work than in the surrounding metro areas. Are there any middle-class families willing to relocate inside the city with the current status of the school system?

Is an Olympic bid going to directly address those things? No. The city will worry itself for several years over how it can build an infrastructure to support the games. Roads might be improved, and I’m sure they will sink millions into sports arenas. It’ll be a city that so desperately wanted to be a “cosmopolitan city” that it wasted years trying to build a Styrofoam frame of one. And in the end, Birmingham will still be a shrinking city with high crime, horrible schools, and corrupt politicians. After all that, it almost surely won’t host the 2020 Olympics.

I like the idea of a goal and a plan — something where city and business leaders can work with people. An Olympic bid is a goal and a means for a plan, I just think it’s the wrong one.