By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on January 1, 2026 Donald V. Watkins I always use the month of December to finalize my personal and business goals for the next year.  Here are my goals for 2026:   Exercise my mind for 12 to 14 hours per day.  I like to achieve this goal by: (a) working with my talented business partners around the world to advance the progress we have made on our commercial-scale infrastructure projects, (b) writing and publishing articles and commentaries on my digital news media platforms, and (c) interacting with industry trendsetters and pioneers. Ramp up my lifelong preventive medicine protocols and routines wherein all major systems of the body and brain are examined by the most accomplished physicians twice per year. Close one major AI deal in January, one major waste-to-fuel deal in Casablanca, Morocco in June, and one major waste-to-fuel deal in Tangiers, Morocco in September.  Complete a multimedia partnership deal in March/April. This will allow me to create and executive produce Netflix-quality films and documentaries of personal interest to me. Expand my work in the CalExit project .   I wish each one of my readers good luck in implementing his/her personal and business goals in 2026.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on June 10, 2025 President Donald Trump deployed the California National Guard to Los Angeles without a request from Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom Trump wants Border Czar Tom Homan to arrest. An Editorial Opinion Most people in America have never heard of CalExit .  It is the name of an organized political campaign in California to succeed from the Union and make the state of California an independent country.   California has the fourth largest economy in the world.  It has a population of 40 million people living within its 163,696 square miles.  It has Army, Navy, and Air Force bases within its territory.  The state also has a sustained record of balanced budgets, great and growing revenue streams, and a healthy budget surplus.   On January 23, 2025, CalExit met the California Secretary of State’s legal requirements to begin collecting petition signatures to place the succession proposition on the ballot in 2028.  The California Attorney General’s official title and summary for the measure as follows:   If enacted, this measure places the following question on November 2028 ballot: “Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country?” If at least 50% of registered voters participate in that election, and at least 55% vote “yes”, it would constitute “a vote of no confidence in the United States of America” and “expression of the will of the people of California” to become an independent country, but would not change California’s current government or relationship with the United States.   Considering the dramatic protest events in Los Angeles over the weekend, President Donald Trump’s unilateral deployment of the California National Guard in Los Angeles, and Trump’s threat to arrest Gov. Gavin Newsom, CalExit will likely secure the number of signatures required for this ballot initiative.   Will California eventually become an independent country?  Considering the chaotic political climate in a deeply divided America today, it is entirely possible.    Unions of states and nations sometimes break up.  The 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union is a prime example of such a breakup.  That breakup of states led to the establishment of independent nations within the same territory.   I support CalExit.  Unfortunately, America has descended into an era of ugly, mindless, political tribalism.  Today, the MAGA Republican ruling party has shown little to no loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.  The MAGA Tribe has established that blind loyalty to an authoritarian president is the only thing that matters.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on October 28, 2020 Former Alabama Mayors Richard Arrington, Jr., and Emory Folmar I was going through some old files recently and ran across a copy of the 1993 Alabama Supreme Court ruling in Ex Parte City of Birmingham, et al (Re: Mary P. Chambers, et al v. City of Birmingham, et al), 624 So. 2d 1018. With the passage of time, I had forgotten about this case. Here is what happened to me in that case and why: On April 21,1992, Mary P. Chambers and Samuel Bowdon, both of whom were white, filed a lawsuit against the City of Birmingham; its mayor, Richard Arrington, Jr.: the members of the Birmingham City Council; and me. The lawsuit challenged the payment of attorney fees to me, sought to enjoin the city from paying me attorney fees in the future, and sought to recover about $8 million in legal fees that had been paid to me from 1985 to 1992. The plaintiffs identified themselves as Birmingham taxpayers and claimed the legal fees were “unlawfully or unreasonably paid”. All defendants filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Attached to my motion was my 57-page affidavit describing my legal services to the city and listing 73 cases in which I was counsel of record. All 73 cases resulted in favorable outcomes for the city. The overwhelming majority of the 73 cases involved trials in court. At the time, I had the longest winning streak in court litigation in Alabama. During the period, Birmingham was self-insured against liability claims. Mayor Arrington had determined that it was cheaper to pay me to defeat these claims and/or advance the city’s corporate interests through litigation than it was to pay about $2 million in annual insurance premiums that included a $1 million dollar deductible per claim. He was right. The 73 cases I handled exposed the city to over $200 million in liability claims. I devised and deployed a technique know as “laser litigation” to defeat them all. I first used this technique when I was representing Walmart in injury claims. Walmart was self-insured and had a “no-settlement” corporate policy. This policy eventually reduced lawsuits against Walmart nationwide. When fully implemented, it drastically reduced Birmingham’s lawsuit burden, as well. Adverse Media Coverage Fueled Hatred The Birmingham Post Herald and Birmingham News routinely published articles on the amount of legal fees the city paid me. This inflamed white residents of the city. No mention was ever made of the total financial exposure the city faced from the 73 cases or the elimination of $200 million in potential liabilities for a self-insured city. I was reviled as the “Mayor’s Nigger Lawyer”, while Arrington was labeled as “Mayor Arrington Nigger”. We received mail through the U.S. Postal Service that was addressed to us with those salutations on the envelope and death threats inside. While the lawsuit was pending, I was also representing the city of Montgomery. I had been hired by the city’s white, staunchly conservative, Alabama Republican Party Chairman and longtime mayor, Emory Folmar , to advance and protect Montgomery’s corporate interests in complex litigation. Whites never uttered a negative word about my representation of Montgomery or the substantial attorney fees it paid to me. The Post Herald and News were silent on this point, as well. The High Court’s Ruling On July 16, 1993, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision directing the trial judge to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaints. The High Court noted that no allegation was made that I did not do the work for which I was paid. The Court based its decision on a 1978 landmark case (City of Montgomery v. Collins) where Mayor Folmar used city money to pay for private attorneys to defend three white police officers who had been indicted for perjury in connection with the fatal police shooting and coverup of an unarmed black man named Bernard Whitehurst . No white taxpayers objected to the use of city money to defend the officers in their criminal cases. It is doubtful whether today’s all-white Republican Alabama Supreme Court would rule in my favor based upon the same facts. Today’s judiciary is one more political theater where all too often allegiance to party ideology not legal principles, guides the outcome of cases. So Much for Ratings I was not able to get a Martindale-Hubbell legal rating as a lawyer until after I retired from representing the cities of Birmingham and Montgomery. I had defeated every "AV" rated lawyer I encountered from 1985 to 1998. Yet, my white peers in the Alabama Bar would not assign any kind of rating for me. Ratings are not important because I still hold the record in American jurisprudence for: (1) The longest winning streak in jury trials (which was finally broken in October 2018 in St. Petersburg, Florida); (2) The most landmark cases in a legal career; (3) Uncovering the greatest number of law enforcement coverups in fatal shootings of innocent citizens; (4) Reducing criminal exposure from an 85 felony count original indictment to total acquittal in a single-defendant case; and (5) Eliminating the most rogue police officers from law enforcement agencies in Alabama Epilogue The money I saved Birmingham in insurance premiums and deductible payments went into a “Rainy Day” fund Mayor Arrington established for unexpected emergency. Along with contributions from other savings, the fund grew to over $100 million by the time Arrington left office in 1999. Now, the city is broke and struggling with a $63 million budget shortfall. I did my job for Birmingham and Montgomery, and did it well. But, white racism has a life of its own. Like “lies with legs”, it leaps from one generation to the next one. Apparently, our excellence is never good enough.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on January 10, 2024 Birmingham barber James Armstrong was a civil rights icon who carried the American flag at the head of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. Mr. Armstrong's courage and bravery on the civil rights battlefield was unmatched by any man/woman. While James Armstrong was facing state troopers swinging billy clubs on horseback, Birmingham-Southern administrators were asking white and black activists what was wrong with Armstrong? They not only failed to support Armstrong's civi rights activism; they actively condemned it. An Editorial Opinion I have written about Nikki Haley’s racial transformation from Sikh Indian to ”White. "  Haley is running for president, and she is doing it as a “White” person.  Through sheer will-power, Nikki Haley has made herself “White.”   Of course there is no legal foundation for Nikki Haley's new " White " racial identity. In the case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind , 261 U.S. 204 (1923), the Supreme Court ruled that Sikhs like Nikki Haley are “ Colored ” people.  Haley’s racial transformation is more of a figment of her imagination than it is a legal reclassification of her race.   Birmingham-Southern is Undergoing a Racial Transformation of its Own Not surprisingly, Birmingham Southern has started the process of transforming itself into an HBCU for the sole purpose of sucking down operational money out of the city of Birmingham's financial coffers.   Late last year, Birmingham-Southern found a way to gouge Birmingham's dwindling base of taxpayers out of $5 million to keep the college afloat.  Birmingham-Southern joined a long list of deadbeat white organizations that have found financial survivability by sticking its spigots into the city’s last few gushers of revenue streams. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) started the trend of siphoning money out of city coffers when it ripped off Birmingham’s neighborhood improvement funds for $90 million and redirected this money over a 30-year period to build a new football stadium for UAB. The University of Alabama Board of Trustees refused to fund UAB's stadium project.   The financially destitute World Games 2022 discovered that it could suck a quick $5 million out of the city’s coffers, while attending the Grammys in Hollywood. In addition to partying in Hollywood, the city's " bailout " money was reportedly used to get a couple of well-placed and undisclosed local " influencers " a chunk of "equity," which was later redeemed in the sale of Gene Hallman's Eventive Sports to Arizonia-based Troon .   Word has spread throughout the state of Alabama that if you own a deadbeat white business, you may qualify for $5 million from the city, as well.   No credit check is required, as evidenced by the fact that Birmingham-Southern has a " junk bond " debtor rating. No Black "junk bond" debtor in America has ever qualified for a $5 million loan or grant for any project.   The city's program for saving deadbeat white organizations paved the way for an amphitheater developer and Birmingham Southern to plug their spigots into the city's revenue streams to get $5 million each.   This year, Birmingham-Southern agreed to host the city’s annual Unity Breakfast next week.   The Unity Breakfast was started by real men of courage like James Armstrong, Simmie Lavender, Colonel Stone Johnson, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Ben Green, Calvin Haynes, Tommy Wren, Doyal Reed, Washington Booker, III , and other brave Black civil rights fighters whom the leadership at Birmingham-Southern College did not like. These men proved to Alabamians that they could not be " bought off " and would not " sell out " the civil rights agenda in the state to anybody for any amount of money. They had backbones of steel. Image: Colonel Stone Johnson always had my back while I was working on cases that uplifted the socio-economic status of Blacks in the city of Birmingham. Colonel Johnson saved my life on more than one occasion. Johnson had more courage in one body than you would find in 100 men. I was blessed to have Colonel Johnson in my life. Birmingham-Southern President Neal Berte (1976 to 2004) wrote a handwritten letter to Major Richard Arrington Jr., in which Berte opposed my successful legal representation of Arrington in the face of U.S. Attorney Frank Donaldson's mean-spirited, unrelenting, four-year battle to purge Arrington from office and imprison him.  Arrington allowed me to read Berte's letter before he balled it up and threw it in the trash can. Birmingham-Southern President Neal Berte (1976 to 2004) wrote Mayor Richard Arrington a handwritten letter asking Arrington to get rid of me as his lawyer. Arrington allowed me to read the letter, after which he balled it up and threw it in the trash can. Neal Berte wrote his letter to Mayor Arrington after U.S. Senator Howell Heflin, who was White, placed a detailed report about Frank Donaldson's lawlessness as U.S. Attorney into the Congressional Record .   What is most bothersome about Birmingham Southern's spigot is this series of historical facts:  First, Birmingham-Southern comes to the scene of the Unity Breakfast drenched in its own history of racism against blacks. Second, Birmingham Southern turned its back on HBCU Daniel Paine College when Daniel Paine needed BSC's help the most. Third, Birmingham-Southern’s absence on the frontline of the 25-year battle to desegregate Alabama colleges and universities in the Knight v. Alabama was inexcusable.   From 1981 to 2006, not a single one of Alabama’s 30 historically white public colleges and universities (HWCUs) advocated for awarding equitable state funding to historically black Alabama State University (ASU) and Alabama A&M University (AAMU) in the higher education desegregation case of Knight v. Alabama . During the 25-year court fight in Knight v. Alabama , Birmingham Southern College stood quietly on the sidelines and never lifted a finger to help ASU and AAMU win the battle for equitable state funding and new academic programs. Birmingham-Southern’s only noticeable response to the long battle to desegregate Alabama's educational institutions after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in schools and colleges in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education was to literally wall itself off from the surrounding predominantly black Bush Hills neighborhood some 22 years later. In 1976, Birmingham-Southern installed a majestic wrought iron fence around its 127-acre campus after the tragic abduction, rape, and murder of Quenette Shehane , a 21-year-old Birmingham-Southern student. The planning for this fence actually began in 1972 after Birmingham-Southern's attempt to flee the Bush Hills neighborhood by selling its campus to ASU fell through. Birmingham-Southern is Financially Broke and Collapsing Today, Birmingham-Southern is financially broke and struggling. The college remains on the verge of collapsing. The college is still seeking $30 million from the state of Alabama and $2.5 million from Jefferson County to stay afloat. The city's $5 million has been delivered to the college. Birmingham-Southern President Daniel Coleman has tasked state Rep. Juandalynn Givan, state Senator Roger Smitherman, and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin , all of whom are Black elected officials, with the responsibility to secure the state's $30 million in "bailout" money for the college. These public officials are Birmingham-Southern's ordained " saviors. " What is more, these "saviors" feel compelled to deliver for President Coleman and Birmingham-Southern, at all costs. None of these "saviors" has ever tried to deliver $37.5 million to Miles College in a single, special purpose, funding campaign. None of these "saviors" seems to remember that Daniel Payne College, an HBCU that was named after the first black president of a college in the United States, was forced to close in 1979 due to inadequate funding. When this sad closing event occurred, Birmingham-Southern did not lift a finger to help Daniel Payne survive. The Bottom-Line Birmingham-Southern is pimping Black elected officials to help the college secure taxpayer "bailout" funding that should be legitimately channeled to HBCUs in Alabama to compensate them for the gross underfunding that these institutions have experienced for over a hundred years. As expected, Birmingham-Southern’s chosen "saviors" have never led the charge for taxpayer funding for any HBCU.  Furthermore, they have an established track-record of gladly playing the “sugar-daddy” role for deadbeat white organizations that need money from city taxpayers.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 28, 2025 Judge David L. Barnes, Birmingham, Alabama. David L. Barnes was a former judge in the Birmingham, Alabama Municipal Court, a former state legislator, and a former dean of the Miles College School of Law.   I knew Judge Barnes when he was the Presiding Judge of the Birmingham Municipal Court.  I am the city official who asked for and received Barnes' immediate resignation as a city judge on direct orders from former Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr.   This is What Happened and Why   One day in the 1990s, I received a phone from a longtime city vendor who reported to me, in my capacity as Special Counsel to Mayor Arrington, that Judge David Barnes dismissed a misdemeanor case involving a female defendant in exchange for oral sex in his private court chambers.  I was provided the first name of this female defendant and her physical description.  She worked as a stripper and escort in Birmingham and reportedly had a drug habit.   I immediately reported this sensitive and potentially explosive information to Mayor Arrington, who instructed me to find the victim and confirm whether the incident happened. If so, I was to obtain Judge Barnes’ immediate resignation.  If Judge Barnes refused to resign, I was instructed to report the incident to the Jefferson County District Attorney immediately thereafter.   Arrington assigned a member of his executive security detail to help me with this investigation.  We started working on the case immediately. Searching for the Truth My assigned officer and I searched every strip club in the city looking for a white stripper who matched the first name and physical description I was given.  She also had a distinctive tattoo on her left hand.   For two weeks, we went out every night to every “hole-in-the-wall” joint in the city looking for this woman.  I finally got a tip that a women matching the physical description and using the same first name was prostituting at an old motel in Pratt City near a trucking company.  We immediately went to the motel in street clothes and an unmarked police car.  The place was rundown and filthy.  Drugs, pimps, prostitutes, and Johns were everywhere.    We went door-to-door, banging on each door, and looking inside each room.  We finally found her.   She was alone in the room, but she was not high.  The description of the tattoo I had been given matched the one on her left hand.    I introduced myself and informed her that she was not in any trouble.  I told her I only need three things -- (a) her real name, (b) a look at her ID, and (c) for her to look me in the eyes and tell me whether she had oral sex with Judge David Barnes in his chambers.  She started crying and told me the whole story.  I knew right away that she was telling me the truth and that she was scared to death because Barnes was a powerful city judge.   I gave her my business card and instructed her to call me if anyone hassled her for any reason.  She stopped crying and I again assured her that she was not in any trouble or danger from providing me her witness account.   The next day, I pulled the city court records and found this woman's case.  The charges against her had been dismissed on Judge Barnes’ own motion and no reason was assigned for the dismissal of the case. There was no record that the prosecutor consented to the dismissal of criminal charges.  Additionally, Judge Barnes’ private chambers matched the detailed description of the room that the woman had given me.    I returned to the court records and found other cases of female defendants in Barnes’ court who had benefited from the same “sex-for-freedom” dismissal of charges.  This was now a full-blown sex scandal and Judge Barnes had to go.   I informed Arrington that the report we received was true.  He was livid. Once again, Arrington instructed me to get Judge Barnes’ immediate resignation.   Securing Judge Barnes’ Resignation   I went to Judge Barnes chambers to see him.  I told him why I was there.  He was stunned.  I informed him of my investigative findings and pulled out a notepad.  I instructed him to handwrite a resignation letter, effective immediately.  Barnes started crying and promised to stop his "sex-for-freedom" scheme.  I told Barnes, if he did not resign at that moment, I would be going to the County Courthouse to report his conduct to the District Attorney.  Barnes wrote and signed his resignation letter on the spot.  I left him in tears.   I took the resignation letter to Mayor Arrington. We never publicly disclosed the reason for Barnes’ immediate resignation.  Arrington and I were relieved that we had ended Barnes' abuse of judicial power and avoided the public disclosure of a bombshell sex scandal that would have rocked City Hall to its core.   Judge Barnes, who was married at the time of his resignation, served as a Deacon and Sunday School Superintendent at Friendship Baptist Church. He died on March 25, 2011.  After his death, the "South Court" at the Birmingham City Jail was renamed in Judge Barnes' honor.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 26, 2025 Caricature of Donald V. Watkins spinning the hamster wheel. I talked with my son Light Watkins in Mexico today.  He explained why many people within MAGA World view me as a controversial and hated public figure.  Here is Light’s theory:   MAGA World views outspoken, well-educated, and articulate persons of color as pet hamsters.  They are comfortable watching these hamsters spin the wheel inside of their cages.  They will even feed these pets and marvel at their ability to spin the wheel – as long as these hamsters are confined inside the cage.   In my case, MAGA World views me as the hamster that escaped the cage.  As such, I am no longer an entertaining pet.  I am now an undesirable pest who is roaming freely inside the house. I am annoying the residents and involving myself in "white folks" business.  MAGA has traps set up throughout the house to recapture and re-cage me.   I guess I should consider myself a lucky man. In 1999, the Birmingham News depicted me in an editorial cartoon as a blood-sucking insect that then-Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid squashed to death. At least MAGA World is no longer publicly advocating for my death. Is that progress?

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on August 17, 2019 Joseph Cole epitomizes courage under fire. His work as a fearless freedom fighter has changed the racial landscape of Gadsden, Alabama's municipal government. On January 20, 1978, 27-year-old Collis Madden Jr. died in a hail of bullets while fleeing a routine traffic stop on his way to his girlfriend’s apartment. Etowah County, Alabama sheriff’s deputies had pulled Madden over because they said he was weaving between lanes on the road. After Madden was stopped, he suddenly decided to speed off. City police joined in the chase. Nine police vehicles were part of the chase by the time the pursuit ended. The shooting started when one officer claimed Madden made a suspicious move. When Madden’s body was taken to the funeral home, the mortician counted 40 to 50 bullet holes in his body, thereby making it difficult to embalm him.  News of Madden’s execution spread quickly across Alabama. Joseph Cole , the young president of the Gadsden chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, contacted me about the shooting death. I was a young attorney in Montgomery, Alabama who recently concluded a high-profile case involving a Montgomery police officer’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black man named Bernard Whitehurst. After an officer screamed on the police radio that, “We done shot the wrong nigger,” a fellow officer planted a “throw-down” gun next to Whitehurst’s body to make it appear that he had been involved in a shootout with police. The Whitehurst case evolved into a nationally recognized scandal that resulted in the resignations of Montgomery’s mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers, and the firing or resignation of eight others.  The Whitehurst case grew into the largest police scandal in Alabama’s history. It was headlined in the April 3, 1977, edition of the Washington Post as “Alabama’s Watergate."  When Joseph Cole called me about Collis Madden’s case, I already knew it was probably a police execution. Joseph was leading a protest effort against Gadsden’s all-white police and fire departments and civil service board. He asked me to come to Gadsden to help the SCLC change the face of Gadsden’s all-white municipal government. I drove to Gadsden to meet with Joseph at the site of the protest. There he was leading a protest movement consisting of several hundred women and children and a handful of men. I asked Joseph where the local men were. He told me the men were afraid to protest. They saw what happened to Collis Madden and they didn’t want that to happen to them. When I pressed Joseph about his front line of women and children, he said, “At least we are doing something about the situation; what are you doing?” I did not respond. As I drove back to Montgomery, Joseph’s question bothered me. I watched strong black women and young children trying hard to change a very bad situation in Gadsden. I knew they needed and deserved my help. I called Joseph Cole the next day and told him I would join the fight. All I needed the SCLC to do was pay the filing fees and court costs for the lawsuit against the City of Gadsden and do the leg work required locally. They scraped the money together and committed to the fight. We then declared war on Gadsden’s all-white city government. We sued to desegregate the city's police and fire departments and the civil service board. The fight was intense and unrelenting. A Fearless Warrior This war gave me the opportunity to make a friend for life in Joseph Cole, a Gadsden native. Joseph graduated from Carver High School in Gadsden. He then attended Gadsden State Junior College, where he studied until he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Joseph served in the Army for three years and rose from a private to the rank of sergeant. A young Joseph Cole served our nation for three years in the U.S. Army. After serving his nation in uniform, Joseph Cole furthered his education at Gadsden State Technical Institute, where he became president of the student government association. As president, Joseph led student protests that eventually improved and enhanced the academic offering and respect for the students. Word of Joseph Cole's courage and effective leadership at Gadsden State quickly spread throughout the city. Joseph was later asked by the African-American community to run for president of the SCLC chapter in Gadsden. He accepted this challenge and defeated a popular local community organizer for the position. Collis Madden’s death in 1978 tested Joseph Cole’s mettle. Gadsden police had a long and ugly history of abusive behavior towards black men in the city. Police officers instilled fear in them through unbridled brutality, without fear of repercussions. As a tough and trained Army sergeant, Joseph Cole was not afraid of any man, in or out of uniform. Joseph Cole decided that time was right to change Gadsden for the better. He inspired me into taking legal action against this institutionalized racism. Joseph found the perfect black applicants for challenging the hiring practices in the fire and police departments. He wanted to bust the civil service board because this agency set the criteria for hiring employees within city government. Joseph Cole’s war on racial discrimination inside Gadsden’s city government came with plenty of threats of death and bodily harm. He did not care. Joseph always repeated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mantra: “A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.” By 1979, the City of Gadsden was ready to surrender to Joseph Cole and his SCLC chapter. The city entered into a Consent Decree with the SCLC under which every department of the municipal government became integrated. Procedures for hiring and promoting employees had to be reviewed by Joseph Cole’s SCLC chapter prior to implementation. The civil service board became integrated for the first time ever. Forty years later, the Consent Decree Joseph Cole fought for and won is still in full force and effect. He Never Stopped Fighting After defeating racial discrimination in city government, Joseph Cole resumed his collegiate studies at Alabama State University. He became president of the student government association while my father was the university’s president. To this day, Joseph Cole is regarded as one of the most respected and effective SGA presidents in ASU history. After graduating from ASU, Joseph Cole taught school in Birmingham and Atlanta. In January 1988, Joseph joined my legal team while I was serving as Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr.’s special counsel in Birmingham. Joseph joined our team during Arrington’s most challenging time as mayor. From 1988 to 1992, the FBI used all of its traditional COINTELPRO tactics in an attempt to oust Dr. Richard Arrington, Jr. as the duly elected mayor of Birmingham Alabama. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that Dr. Arrington was one of 1,897 civil rights activists targeted by the FBI for neutralization. In October 1979, Dr. Arrington became Birmingham’s first African-American mayor. He won re-election in 1983 and 1987 by wide margins. Arrington’s growing influence on Alabama’s statewide political scene made him a COINTELPRO target. Eventually, local FBI agents convinced federal prosecutors in Birmingham that it was time to take Arrington out as mayor. Birmingham FBI agents stalked and harassed Mayor Arrington from 1988 to 1992 looking for any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. A few weeks prior to Dr. Arrington’s October 1991 re-election, federal prosecutors, at the urging of local FBI agents, publicly named Mayor Arrington an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the fraud trial of another individual.  The sole purpose of this public disclosure was to damage Arrington’s re-election bid and aid another candidate favored by local FBI/DOJ officials. Dr. Arrington decried this attempted coup d'etat . On Election Day, Arrington swept to victory on the strength of his solid record of achievement as mayor and his broad-based popularity with voters. Mayor Arrington was never indicted for any criminal offense. In 1992, DOJ officials in Washington cleared Mayor Arrington of all allegations of wrongdoing and issued the first-ever public apology to a sitting public official for smearing his name.  Dr. Arrington’s case was the first documented FBI-led coup d'etat of a duly elected mayor on U.S. soil. The FBI’s targeting and harassment of Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., is reported in the Congressional Record-Senate at S2533-2546 (March 9, 1990) . Joseph Cole co-authored and edited this report. Epilogue The Collis Madden tragedy brought Joseph Cole and me together. Joseph’s demonstrated courage under fire forged a close friendship between us for life. Many African-Americans in Gadsden city government today do not realize that the battles Joseph Cole fought in the late 1970s and early 1980s opened the doors for them to: (a) hold office on the Gadsden city council and local school board, (b) work as employees in all city departments, and (c) serve on the civil service board. Joseph Cole never sought recognition for his courageous acts under fire. Rather, Joseph Cole sought respect for the African-American community. In the end, Joseph Cole found fulfillment in the fact that his actions and personal sacrifices positively impacted the larger Gadsden community for the betterment of all of its citizens.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 23, 2025 An Editorial Opinion U.S. consumer sentiment is at a record low .  Americans are paying more today for homeownership, rental housing, groceries, utilities, automobiles, insurance premiums, childcare, and healthcare than they were a year ago.  Furthermore, the number of Americans who are living from paycheck to paycheck has surged to 67%.   President Donald Trump, who is a multibillionaire, says everything is fine because the stock markets are up and his multibillionaires friends are thriving in this economy.  Trump, himself, is focused on building a White House ballroom and making deals that enrich his family .   Wall Street is painting a false positive narrative that the economy is surging. This picture reflects the financial health of the One Percenters, not Main Street.   Working-Class Americans from Bleeding Out.   Americans are suffering in this economy.  Many of them are bleeding out each day. Here is what their suffering looks and feels like:   Job layoffs have skyrocketed. Employers have announced 1,170,821 job cuts this year through November, an increase of 54% from the 761,358 announced in the first 11 months of 2024 . Auto loans defaults and car repossessions are up. Student loan defaults have gone through the roof. Home foreclosures are up by 17% over last year. Personal Chapter 7 and 11 bankruptcies are up by 10.6% over last year . The America housing market is in a recession . Insurance premiums of every kind are up and unaffordable. Americans are standing in line at food banks in numbers not seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment is up among young Americans between 20 and 24 is 8.3% , the highest since 2016. AI is replacing American jobs of all types. America’s family farmers and cattle ranchers are bankrupting in record numbers. The dollar is losing its value or purchasing power each year.   Today, Trump’s job approval ratings are in the toilet. After gaslighting the American public for 11 months, Trump and his sycophants in government and the private sector have concocted a scheme to mainstream Bitcoin as the savior for our economic woes. Bitcoin is an alternative digital currency that Wall Street can easily manipulate in artificial ways.   Bitcoin is not classified as a Tier 1 bankable asset . It is a digital currency that has no intrinsic value and is favored by money launderers and other unsavory characters.  It is not backed by any tangible asset.  Longtime Berkshire Hathaway CEO calls Bitcoin “ rat poison .” I agree with him. Who will save the American economy? None of the greedy grifters and unbridled hoarders who are running the national government and Wall Street today. All of them are busy lining up private business deals for their personal survival.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 21, 2025 From 1932 to 1972, 445 men with confirmed cases of syphilis and 178 men in a "control group" participated in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The men were told they had "bad blood" and were being given free medical treatment for their condition. In fact, they were only given placebos (e.g., aspirin and mineral supplements). Unknown to these men, the ones who had syphilis were tracked to their deaths to study the effects of untreated syphilis. Christmas for a Dying Macon County, Alabama Man It was the week before Christmas, 51 years ago. Mr. Charlie W. Pollard and another survivor led me to a small shack in rural Macon County, Alabama. The man inside the shack could not come to the door, but he called out for us to enter his tiny home after Mr. Pollard knocked loudly on the door and announced our presence. The man had no Christmas decorations in or around the shack. A kerosene lamp provided lighting inside his home. The man was laying on a cot in the one-room, cold shack that had a dirt floor and cardboard tacked up where glass windows should have been. The stench from his shack was unbearable. This man was dying from the effects of 40 years of untreated syphilis and related health problems. He was old, nearly blind, laboring hard to breathe, debilitated by tumors, and suffering from liver and stomach problems. He was immobile due to searing bone and joint pain, ulcerated cutaneous syphilis on his arms and legs, and damage to his central nervous system. This man was hurting, badly. Yet, he had a profound sense of pride and dignity about himself. The man Pollard took me to see was a fellow participant in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. And, he was dying. A Racist, Unethical, Government-Sponsored and Operated, Medical Experiment on Unsuspecting Black Men In 1974, I was a young civil rights attorney with the law firm of Gray, Seay, and Langford. Senior partner Fred D. Gray, who represented Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms. Rosa Parks, and other civil rights icons during the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement, was the lead counsel in a class action lawsuit filed in 1973 on behalf of 623 black men who were duped by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) and Alabama Department of Public Health officials into participating in nontherapeutic human experimentation on syphilitic patients, without their valid, competent, voluntary, and informed consent to such experimentation. The official name of this human experimentation project was the " Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. " For 40 years, the United States government sponsored, financed, and operated medical research that callously experimented with and risked the very lives and health of these 623 black citizens. All of the participants in the Study were poor, rural, and mostly illiterate residents of Macon County, Alabama. All of them had been told that they had " bad blood ," a local term for several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, bone and joint pain, and fatigue. The USPHS and state health officials promised the men treatment for their ailments, physical examinations, hot meals, transportation to and from the hospital (at Tuskegee Institute, which was misled into believing the Study participants were being properly treated), and burial insurance. Researchers also lied to the participants in order to get their permission for painful spinal taps during the physical exams and autopsies after their deaths. Flyer used to recruit Tuskegee Syphilis Study participants. Mr. Pollard was the lead plaintiff in the class action case. He and the other 622 Study participants were the unwitting human subjects in this unethical medical experiment that lasted from 1932 to 1972. The sole purpose of the Study was to examine, in detail, the effects of untreated syphilis in human subjects until the last man was dead. The USPHS never gave any consideration to conducting this experimentation on white men, nor did it consider including white men in the Study. Over the 40-year period, 445 men with confirmed cases of syphilis and 178 men in a "control group" participated in the Study. All of the participants were given placebos such as aspirin and mineral supplements. The syphilitic participants were never given penicillin, even after it became the recommended treatment protocol for syphilis in 1943. USPHS researchers and state health officials convinced local doctors in Macon County to forego treating the Study participants for their ailments. A Slow, Painful Death The syphilitic man in the shack was nearing the end of his life when we met. For 40 years, this man had been on a long, slow, descent into a living hell, all in the name of some USPHS medical experiment of dubious value. Yet, this man still had hope that he would be cured. I gave this man an update on the lawsuit that Attorney Gray had filed on their behalf. I explained to him that a settlement that had been reached between the plaintiffs and the United States government. He listened to me talk, asked questions about the case, and he agreed to the settlement. As time passed, it became clear to me that this man was more focused on his health and on getting better than he was on the settlement. The man knew he was in bad shape, but he wanted to live. I did not address the man's hope of getting better because I knew he was dying a slow, painful death. I also knew his condition was irreversible at this stage in his life. Instead, I grabbed a Bible that was near his cot and asked the man if I could read a Biblical passage to him. He said, "Yes." I read him the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12. Then, I led the four of us in the shack in a prayer. I asked God to transform this man -- a metaphorical "caterpillar" on earth -- into a beautiful "butterfly' with eternal life whenever he was received in Heaven. Until that time, I begged God to give this dying man a measure of freedom from pain and peace on earth. On our ride back to Attorney Gray's Tuskegee office, I did not say a word to Mr. Pollard or the other survivor who was riding with us. I was filled with bitterness and rage at the inhumanity of the federal and state officials towards the 623 black men in the Study and their families. These 623 Black Lives Did Not Matter, Until 1972 Under the 1974 settlement in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study case, 70 living syphilitic participants received $37,500 each. The 46 living men in the control group got $16,000 each. The 339 deceased syphilitic participants received $15,000 each. The deceased members of the control group got $5,000 each. Attorney Gray was not able to locate 36 syphilitic participants and 8 members of the control group, but we continued looking for them for several years. The total value of the settlement for the 579 Study victims Mr. Gray represented was $9,066,000, which was a record for the monetary value of black lives in Alabama in 1974. Attorney Gray had also negotiated free healthcare for life for the participants who were still living, as well as healthcare for their infected wives, widows, and children. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not end because USPHS and Alabama health officials suddenly valued black lives in 1972. The Study ended only because Washington Star reporter Jean Heller wrote an article about the Study that the Associated Press (AP) published worldwide on July 25, 1972. The New York Times published a front page article about the Study the next day. This press exposure rightly and grievously embarrassed the U.S. government. Alabama public officials remained unconcerned. After all, the Macon County men were just poor, rural, illiterate "niggers," and no white men were involved. By the time the AP and New York Times articles were published, 28 Study participants had died from syphilis, 100 more had died from related health complications, and 40 spouses had been diagnosed with syphilis. Additionally, congenial syphilis had been passed on at birth to 19 of the men's children. On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton issued a formal Presidential Apology for the Study. Only six Study participants were alive when Clinton apologized to these men. Mr. Pollard was one of them. Mr. Charlie W. Pollard died on April 29, 2000, at the age of 94. He was a fearless warrior for justice and one hell of a man. The last Tuskegee Syphilis Study participant died in 2004. No USPHS Doctor Involved With the Study Was Prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity In 1947, the U.S. Military Tribunal at Nuremberg adopted the Nuremberg Code in 1947 and used it to charge, try, convict, and execute Germany scientists for their human experimentation on Jews, Gypsies, Gays, and Black Germans during World War II. The Tribunal characterized the German scientists' nontherapeutic human experimentation as "crimes against humanity." In America, the white medical community knew about the Study for decades and condoned it. Researchers even published articles about the Study in the Journal of the American Medical Association . White doctors working with the federal and state health officials, together with those doctors in private practice in Macon County, acted in concert with each other to make sure that the participants did not receive any medical treatment for syphilis and/or its related medical complications throughout the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, not a single doctor who participated in this unethical and illegal human experimentation was prosecuted for "crimes against humanity." Epilogue To this day, my visit to the man in the shack in Macon County 51 years ago this week was the worst experience in my life. That moment in time was the closest I have ever come to hating those whites who viewed and treated blacks as something less than human beings. The only thing that pulled me back from the brink of this hatred was my memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holding my little hand in our Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School class while he quoted this verse from Matthew 5:44: " [L]ove your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you ." Dr. King, who was my Sunday School teacher, pastor, BTU instructor, and Crusaders Club leader in the early 1950s, followed this verse by leading us in singing, " Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.... ". I used the hurt, bitterness, and anger I experienced at that Macon County shack 51 years ago to fuel my passionate fight against all forms of white racism in Alabama, a state that had what one federal judge described in 1986 as " an unrelenting historical agenda, spanning from the late 1880s to the 1980s, to keep its black citizens economically, socially, and politically downtrodden, from the cradle to the grave. " Since then, federal courts, from the U.S. Supreme Court (in 2023) to a three-judge federal court panel court (in 2024) and U.S. District Courts in Montgomery and Birmingham (in 2025), have repeatedly affirmed that this historical agenda is still very much in play in Alabama today. When will this agenda end? No time soon.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 17, 2025 Outgoing Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett's view on Bitcoin. An Editorial Opinion In light of recent media hype about Bitcoin, I raise this simple banking question: Is Bitcoin a Tier 1 asset? The clear answer is," No ." Bitcoin is a "junk asset" (i.e., something that is speculative, volatile, and lacking in intrinsic value) that President Donald Trump and cryptocurrency industry insiders are trying to mainstream as a legitimate alternative currency to cold, hard, cash. Of course, Trump and his family members are in the cryptocurrency business. As a prudent international businessman and former banker, I always look for independent validation of the self-promotional claims of pitchmen who market their own " nobody has ever seen anything like it " financial products. Tier 1 Assets   A Tier 1 asset, usually called Tier 1 Capital, refers to a bank's core, most stable financial resources like common stock, retained earnings, disclosed reserves, and gold, all of which are crucial for absorbing losses and maintaining stability.   Bitcoin is NOT a Tier 1 asset.  Bitcoin is the highest tier version of nothing.  In fact, it’s the best nothing in the marketplace today.  Nobody knows what it really is beyond an exotic digital algorithm. Bitcoin is not backed by anything of value .   Bitcoin is a huge high-risk gamble for financial institutions in the U.S, which are already loosely regulated with inadequate government oversight.  There is not an accredited, government-regulated, financial lender in America that would accept Bitcoin as the sole collateral for a substantial personal loan.  Recently, major banks like JPMorgan Chase have started to accept Bitcoin (and Ethereum) as collateral for institutional loans, using third-party custodians to secure the digital assets. Cross-collateral loan provisions tend to derisk crypto-based institutional loans.   Trump wants to use the U.S. government and pension funds to provide exit liquidity so that ordinary retail banks can engage in Bitcoin-related transactions. In effect, U.S. taxpayers and pensioners will provide the cash safety nets needed to mainstream cryptocurrencies in retail banking transactions   What is more troubling is this fact: Over 90% of all computers fast enough to process Bitcoin are manufactured in China.  Once again, America would be captive to China's vast digital, AI, and IT infrastructure. At the end of the day, crytocurrency is a huge, complex, Ponzi-like scheme and money laundering apparatus, and nothing more.   Warren Buffett, the outgoing CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and an investment guru, calls cryptocurrency “ rat poison .”   The Trump Administration’s Desperate Effort to Mainstream Bitcoin   Approximately $9.2 trillion of marketable U.S. debt matured in 2025, with a similar amount expected in 2026.  The financial markets are struggling to absorb this high volume of government debt without pushing interest rates higher.  Higher rates increase the government's interest payments, a cycle that worries sophisticated investors.   Donald Trump plans to repay as much of this $9 trillion debt as he can with a "junk asset" like Bitcoin, rather than cash.  Using unchecked presidential powers, Trump can artificially manipulate the value of Bitcoin on a daily basis.  He cannot do this with cash. What is more, the U.S. dollar is worth less every year because of inflation and Trump's rudderless trade wars.   Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve Board tacitly admitted that the bond markets has not been buying much of the $9 trillion of federal debt that has matured in 2025.  As such, the Federal Reserve will buy a $40 billion per month portion of it. This is part of a "reserve management" effort to ensure sufficient liquidity in the overnight lending   The last time the Federal Reserve did anything like this was in the 1940s and it led to 20% inflation. When Germany did it in the 1930s it led to hyperinflation.   Where Do American Investors Go from Here? Donald Trump’s political answer to this financial mess is two prong: (a) seize control of the Federal Reserve Bank to manipulate monetary policy in a way that obscures America's growing national debt problem and (b) mainstream “ rat poison ” as an acceptable alternative to U.S. dollars. The last grand Wall Street "funny money" scheme cost American shareholders $13 trillion in lost economic value and caused global markets to crash in 2008. Cryptocurrencies are far more more volatile and lethal than the exotic derivatives used for mortgage-backed securities and junk bonds that triggered the Great Recession of 2008.   Meanwhile, Warren Buffett announced at his May 2025 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting that: " Government tendency is to debase currency over time - there's no system that beats that " and " U.S. fiscal policy scares me . "  As such, Berkshire has moved $348 billion in cash in recent years into Japanese yen bond positions.  That's Buffett’s hedge against the dollar’s decline.  He did not see investing in “ rat poison ” as a viable option for Berkshire.   I am following Warren Buffett’s lead. He does NOT have a track-record of bankrupting and tanking businesses. Donald Trump has bankrupted six businesses and tanked another 21 of them.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on January 3, 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley (top left in blue shirt) with her parents and siblings after her Sikh Indian immigrant parents settled in South Carolina, circa 1969. An Editorial Opinion I understand why Nikki Haley desperately wants to be " White. " Let me shed some much needed light on this subject for my reading audience. On August 28, 2019, I entered the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp at FCI Talladega, Alabama as a high-profile "political prisoner."  My designated Federal Bureau of Prison name was Inmate 36223-001 .    This was my assigned " slave" name in a federal penal colony. As American historians know, penal slavery is an express exception to the Thirteenth Amendment's ban on commercial and private slavery. To be clear, inmates in America's state and federal penal colonies are legally and technically " slaves ." See, Ruffin v. Commonwealth , 21 Gratt. 790, 62 Va. 790 , Virginia Supreme Court (1871). For political correctness purposes, American society refers to these slaves as "inmates."   Anyway, the Camp at Talladega, which is located about 40 miles east of Birmingham, Alabama, had an overwhelming Black inmate population, staff of guards, and administrators.  Unbeknownst to me, when I was processed into the Camp, I was officially classified as a “ White ” inmate.  I would later learn that White inmates actually ran the Camp, bossed the guards, and held great sway over the administrators.   During the walk from the intake office to the Camp, the counselor who was escorting me there provided me with an unsolicited explanation of all of the benefits, perks, and privileges that White inmates enjoyed.  She apparently did not realize I am Black.   I was told how to create my own job.  She suggested that I consider a teaching job for myself.  I was told how to get the highest inmate pay and best working conditions.  She told me that the Camp assigns the hardest manual labor jobs to Black inmates, who often performed these jobs in unfavorable weather conditions and without adequate safety training and equipment.   Once I entered the Camp, I noticed that the small white inmate population ran the Commissary, served as “town drivers” who transported inmates to the bus station and doctors’ office, and filled the administrative jobs in the Library and Warden’s office.  Prison officials even bought a $7,000 Baby Grand piano for one White Camp inmate .   The White inmates also received new prison uniforms, underwear, towels and face clothes, mattresses, sheets, and blankets, as opposed to used clothing and bedding items that were routinely issued to Black inmates.   All of this " White Privilege " occurred under the ingratiating watch of Warden Cheron Y. Nash, a Black female version of Clarence Thomas.  Like Thomas, Nash was a failed experiment in affirmative action.  What is more, the Camp’s drug-dealing ring operated directly out of Warden Nash’s office.   My status as a “ White ” inmate changed four hours after I entered the Camp when I visited the Camp’s psychologist, Dr. Petty, for the routine questions asked of new inmates (i.e., Do you have suicidal thoughts? No. Have you abused drugs or alcohol? No. Were you abused as a child? No., etc.).   During Dr. Petty’s questioning, she astutely realized that I am a light-skinned Black man. She politely asked me to confirm this fact.  I confirmed my ethnicity without hesitation.  Dr. Petty immediately called the intake office and demanded that I be reclassified as “ Black ,” right then and there. The intake office made the change on my racial designation to " Black ."   Once I reverted back to being officially “ Black ,” all of the generous benefits, perks, and privileges I enjoyed as a “ White ” inmate were gone, except for my newly created job as a teacher (without the high salary).  From that point on, I was treated in the same shabby manner as all of the other Black inmates at the Camp.    Why Nikki Haley Wants to Be “White”   Given my weird personal experience of being “White” for 4 hours , I understand why Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is desperately trying so hard to escape her status as a “ Colored ” person to become “ White .”   Haley, whose real name is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa,   even falsely claimed on her voter registration application that she is "White." I do not agree with Nikki Haley's endless efforts to achieve an officially acknowledged reassignment of her racial identity, as evidenced by her rhetoric and actions. In fact, I find it to be sickening . Nikki Haley knows that Whites are routinely treated better than Blacks in American society, even when they are imprisoned. This has always been the case. It's engrained in our culture. Unfortunately for Nikki Haley, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the “ Aryan racial purity ” claim that a Sikh Indian like Haley argued in his bid to be reclassified as “ White. ”  I n the case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind , 261 U.S. 204 (1923), the Supreme Court ruled that Sikhs like Thind and Haley are “ Colored ,” just like me.   Like her political bedfellow Clarence Thomas, Nikki Haley can act “ White ” and pander to the worst racial instincts in Whites, but this kind of interaction with the White world will not make either one of them " White ."    Like Clarence Thomas, that old “one-drop” of “Colored” blood racial classification rule has Nikki Haley hopelessly trapped in the “ Colored ” world. Even though I was " White" for 4 hours , I enjoy my life as a Black man. I came into the world exactly the way God created me -- a loving human being with compassion for every member of the human race. Within my family, " love sees no color. " Life is too short for self-hatred or the endless hatred of others based solely on the color of their skin.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 14, 2025 Tommy Tuberville (left) and Doug Jones (right) are running for governor of Alabama in 2026. Alabama will elect a new governor in November 2026.  The leading Republican candidate is U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, a 71-year-old Florida resident who uses a bogus Alabama address for election qualifying purposes.   Last week, former U.S. Senator Doug Jones, also 71, announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for governor. Jones is a wealthy Mountain Brook resident who has cast himself as the working man's candidate. For my readers who live outside of Alabama, Mountain Brook is the richest and whitest city (with a 97.2% of white population) in a state that is 26% black.   Once again, voters are staring at a race that features two old white guys, together with all of their flaws, political baggage, and severe limitations in the modern era.  I know them both and do not support either one of them.   Both men have held public office for many years. Tuberville has been the senior U.S. Senator from Alabama since 2021. He was also Auburn University’s head football coach from 1999 to 2008, at which time the University ran him off.    Jones served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 1997 to 2001.  He was also an Alabama U.S. Senator from 2018 to 2021. Tuberville defeated Jones in the Senate race in 2020.   By objective standards, neither man’s public service has favorably impacted the quality of life for working-class Alabamians.  In Alabama, any establishment politician who is NOT aggressively "whoring" for the ultra-conservative oligarchs who run the state is considered an “enemy” of the status quo.   Carefully Crafted PR Profiles   Tommy Tuberville is a MAGA flamethrower.  Tuberville is profoundly ignorant and racist .  As a U.S. Senator, Tuberville has NEVER articulated a substantive idea for improving any quality-of-life factor in Alabama.  Furthermore, he is a total loser when measured by his ability as Alabama's senior Senator to bring federal dollars to the state.   Doug Jones’ claim to fame arises from his prosecution of two Ku Klux Klan members who were responsible for the 1963 16 th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls.  The case was reopened the year before Jones was appointed by Bill Clinton as a federal prosecutor, but it did not gain traction until his appointment as U.S. Attorney. Jones recounts the history of the church bombing and his subsequent involvement in the prosecution of bombers Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., and Bobby Frank Cherry in his 2019 book  Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights .   Students of American history know that the first bombing defendant, Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, was indicted and prosecuted by  Attorney General of Alabama William "Bill" Baxley and Assistant Attorney General John Yung, III , in 1977 amid a barrage of death threats to Baxley and Yung.  Chambliss was convicted of the first-degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. The FBI deliberately withheld crucial evidence from the Baxley and Yung team that would have made it possible for them to prosecute Blanton and Cherry, along with Chambliss. This evidence remained concealed from Alabama law enforcement agencies until 1995, when the FBI reopened the investigation. Thirteen years after Baxley and Yung obtained the Chambliss conviction, Doug Jones indicted Blanton and Cherry on eight counts each in relation to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Both men were convicted of first-degree murder by trial juries.   Alabamians Have a Viable and Talented Candidate in Dr. Will Boyd   Dr. Will Boyd, 54, has also announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for governor of Alabama.  He’s a fresh face, a super-smart man, an energetic doer, a visionary, and a viable candidate for governor.  Dr. Will Boyd, a Democratic candidate for governor of Alabama in 2026. A successful businessman and engineer, Dr. Boyd began his career working in manufacturing leadership roles both in the U.S. and abroad, including as a production manager and quality executive with A.O. Smith Water Products and International Filter Manufacturing.  His experience in both the private and public sectors gives him a unique understanding of how to grow opportunity, build strong organizations, and lead with integrity. Dr. Boyd holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of South Carolina, an MBA from Regis University, and doctorates in Religion, Psychology, and Organizational Management.  He has served as Chancellor of St. James the Elder University and as Dean of Student Success and Assistant Professor of Management at Greenville College.  He is also the author of three books focused on leadership, values, and faith.   Dr. Boyd is the only candidate in the race with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to move Alabama forward in the age of Artificial Intelligence, digital commerce, robotics, automated manufacturing, modern miracles in medicine, and increasing strategic business alliances in the U.S. and abroad. Tuberville and Jones, both of whom are traditional partisan hacks, do not have a clue about how to navigate the state of Alabama through today's vast and fast high-tech ecosystem to become an economic powerhouse in America and around the world. The election of Tuberville or Jones guarantees Alabama's continued presence on the bottom rung of the nation's economic ladder.   What’s at Stake in this Election?   The GOP has been in rock solid control of statewide politics in Alabama since 2001. Yet, the state ranks at or near the bottom of every quality-of-life category.  MAGA Republicans like Tommy Tuberville don’t even pretend to do anything but serve as cheerleaders and mascots for the multibillionaires in New York and Silicon Valley who gather at Mar-a-Lago periodically to puff on cigars, drink Louis XIII de Remy Martin Black Pearl Grande Champagne Cognac (at $150,000 per 1.75 Liter bottle) , and celebrate the enormous size of their personal wealth.   Doug Jones’ time on the political scene has come and gone.  Alabama voters don’t need a local, glad-handed, upgraded version of old-school Bill Clinton and Joe Biden.   Alabamians are suffering very badly in these terrible economic times. They are barely hanging on. The American dream is a distant memory for every segment of the state's population, except for the uppity and insulated residents of Mountain Brook. It’s time for Alabama voters to try a different kind of leader.  The state must break the endless cycle of modern-day scalawags in the governor’s office if Alabama wants to reach its full potential.  Dr. Will Boyd offers voters the best chance for reaching this goal.   In my view, Doug Jones does not have a realistic chance of beating Tommy Tuberville. Dr. Will Boyd does. Diverse groups of forward-thinking Alabama voters who want meaningful and positive changes in the state are feeding off Will Boyd's energy, superior knowledge, charisma, calm confidence, and measured optimism. He is the leader Alabama voters have been waiting for in the 21st century. In closing, I say this to my readers: The beautiful thing about being a political independent like me is the freedom to speak the cold, hard, truth on all political matters. I can tell it like it is. Whether voters listen to this truth is their perogative.