By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 3, 2023 Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action for black students in college and university admissions programs. Affirmative action for marginally qualified white students who are admitted into these colleges and universities under legacy admission programs was left intact. Do not despair. As a family, we have never depended on the fickle generosity of third parties, or the lowering of performance standards, or the political machinations of a machete-wielding Supreme Court. The Watkins bloodline has always stressed educational excellence, brainpower, goal setting, focus, perseverance, patience, financial independence, and hard work to secure and protect our future in American society. These are the only tools that have consistently worked in the face of never-ending impediments to our inclusion in the socio-economic progress of this nation. Our family mantra is simple. Once a Watkins student enters any classroom, first place is taken by him/her. We will outthink, outwork, outperform, and outlast any competitor or adversary. The Watkins family does not complain whenever we are cheated out of victories that rightfully belong to us, or whenever we are "railroaded" in contests by biased officials. These situations occur often in life. You can count on them like you can count on bad weather. We use cheating, railroading, and racial discrimination as fuel for our passion and mission in life. By studying the family values that my paternal grandparents, John Adam and Sallie Emma Watkins, instilled in their children and grandchildren, you will see the tangible results that flow from the Watkins brand of “affirmative action." Adam and Sallie Watkins My lessons on manhood came early. John Adam Watkins, whom we called Adam Watkins, taught me what he imparted to his sons – “God made you a man, so be a man.” There is nothing ambiguous about who we are or what we stand for. Adam and Sallie Watkins lived in Clarksville, Tennessee in the 1950s. Adam Watkins gave me my first summer job – a plumber’s apprentice -- and my first paychecks. He ran the biggest plumbing company in town. Granddaddy Watkins had mostly white customers, and he lived on Main Street. Adam Watkins taught me that the ability to render a first class, high-quality business service transcended race. Sallie Emma Watkins handled the company's money and kept its financial books and records. She was strong, smart, and kind. She was Adams' life partner in every way. In 1962, I also watched the Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Clement come to granddaddy Watkins’ home and request his political support at a time when only a small number of blacks in the state had the courage to register and vote in Tennessee elections prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Adam and Sallie Watkins, who were born in 1890 and 1896, respectively, feared no man and were respected by all men and women. Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr. Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr., was the oldest of Adam and Sallie Watkins’ five sons and two daughters. He was also my father. He was the strongest and smartest man I have ever known. When my father was a child, he was not allowed to attend the “white” school in his small Kentucky community. He walked alone to the “colored” school in Cadiz, which was six miles away. Father passed the local “white” school twice each day. Sometimes, he was wet and cold. And sometimes, his feet were numb from walking in the snow and sleet of winter. To attend school, my father had no choice. He grew to hate racism, but not the innocent children in the “white” school he passed each day. Adam and Sallie Watkins taught my father how to be morally strong, how to be fair, and how to be concerned about the plight of African-Americans in the segregated South. Dr. Levi Watkins served as president of Alabama State University from 1962 to 1981. He took a small, neglected, all-black state college in Montgomery, Alabama from an unaccredited status in 1962 to full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1966. It was the second time my father had accomplished this feat in a four-year period. The first time occurred in the 1950s when father served as president of Owen Junior College in Memphis, Tennessee. Lillian Bernice Varnado Watkins was my father's wife, best friend, spiritual leader, my role model for a woman, and personal hero. Together, they taught me how to be a strong man, how to respect women, how to deal effectively with bullies and bigots, and how to stand up for what is right, even when I had to stand by myself. As was the case with Adam and Sallie Watkins, my father and mother groomed each one of their three daughters and three sons to become loving and caring community leaders. They loved to inspire, motivate, educate, and support the younger generations. To them, education excellence was the surest pathway to a better life. But, the pursuit of this excellence must start in K-12 schools. Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. On May 29, 1966, The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) published an article announcing the acceptance of the “first Negro ever accepted by Vanderbilt University’s school of medicine.” His name was Levi Watkins, Jr. He was my oldest brother. Even though Levi was accepted at other prestigious medical schools around the nation, he was denied admission to The University of Alabama’s medical school in Birmingham in 1966. Levi’s experience at Vanderbilt was challenging. While he mastered the academic course of study with ease, Levi caught pure hell from fellow students who resented his presence at the medical school. Levi’s worst experience came when he exited his dormitory one day, and someone emptied a full can of garbage on him from a second-floor window. He returned to his room, quickly cleaned himself up, and hurried to class. Nothing these students did to Levi ever broke his spirit or focus on graduating with honors. After graduation, Levi began his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. There, he became chief resident of cardiac surgery, acting as the first African American chief resident at the university. Levi eventually would become a world-famous heart surgeon and associate dean at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In 1975, Levi continued the pioneering medical research on the implantable defibrillator that had been started by Drs. Michel Mirowski, Morton Mower, and William Staewen. In February 1980, Levi implanted the first defibrillator at a time when many white Johns Hopkins University Hospital cardiac patients did not want a black heart surgeon, who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, to perform life-saving surgery on them. Levi overlooked their bigotry, loved them as human beings, and saved their lives anyway. More than 3 million people worldwide are walking around with implantable defibrillators that were developed by the pioneering medical research of Drs. Michel Mirowski, Morton Mower, William Staewen, and Levi Watkins, Jr. The device, which detects arrhythmias in the heart and emits an electric charge to correct them, prevents sudden death from an irregular heartbeat. Levi’s motto in life was this simple phrase: “Let your work speak for you .... and you’ll never have to say anything about yourself.” Levi's journey from "VU Med School Get's 1st Negro" to the dedication of The Levi Watkins, Jr. M.D. Outpatient Center at Johns Hopkins Medical Center on June 8, 2023, has been an amazing experience for our family. My Five Children (Your Fathers, Uncles, and Aunt) As you know, I have four sons and one daughter. They are your fathers, uncles, and aunt. My sons are real men. They work very hard at serving humanity and taking care of their families. My daughter is just as smart, independent, and strong as my sons. All of my children have backbones of steel and a purpose-driven life. The lessons that were taught to me by Adam and Sallie Watkins, Levi and Lillian Watkins, and Levi Watkins, Jr., have been successfully passed down to my children. Now, my children are sharing these valuable lessons with you, along with the Watkins family legacy of unity, educational excellence, independence, goal setting, hard work, and service to humanity. Epilogue Do not worry about the "affirmative action" that can be granted to African-Americans and taken away on a whim by an activist Supreme Court that is drowning in ethical lapses. Our family has never relied on this type of "affirmative action." We have never sought to lower anybody's standards of performance. Instead, we strive to outperform any standard that has been set. Since 1830, we have relied upon: (a) brainpower, (b) an extensive, close, and impenetrable network of family members and true friends, (c) goodwill that has been accumulated over five generations within the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family, (d) our family's financial independence, (e) a work ethic that outperforms everybody else's, and (f) God's love and divine wisdom. Nothing else matters. The blended Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family has conquered every barrier to success that a racist Old South society could impose upon us. We never seek validation from anyone outside of our family and we never let others define who we are. Our work speaks for us. We are bridge builders in society, which is a mission we undertake with great pride. Today, our family’s reach is vast, deep, sustained, and global. As a circumstance of birth, you are the newest members of a growing, loving, generous, progressive, resourceful, financially independent, and indestructible familial network. All of us are lucky to be members of this family. The Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family's history in America has been meticulously documented, preserved, and widely publicized for your benefit, as well as the benefit of future generations of African-American families. Learn our family's history and use it as a guide for navigating the most difficult seas of life.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 4, 2023; Update at 6 p.m. PST An Editorial Opinion White powdery cocaine was found Sunday night in the White House Library. This is a first time recreational amounts of cocaine have been found inside the White House in American history. Sunday night, the discovery of an “unknown item” forced a brief evacuation of the White House and drew a Hazmat team from Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS to the White House. The "unknown item" was a white powdery substance, which was tested at the scene. The test was positive for cocaine, according to a dispatch call made that evening. “We have a yellow bar stating cocaine hydrochloride,” a D.C. firefighter stated in a radio communication at 8:49 p.m. on Sunday. The radio communications also confirm that the cocaine was found in the Library. “Bag it up and take it out,” the firefighter told the Hazmat team. The Library is the same room where Hunter Biden used his laptop. Immediately following the evacuation, the Secret Service assumed it belonged to Hunter. They did not collect fingerprints from the bag because they knew Hunter had left it behind. Hunter Biden and the Biden family returned to the White House today from their 4th of July extended weekend break at Camp David. After the family's return to the White, a Secret Service source told the DailyMail.com that the cocaine was found in a "West Wing work area" and not in the Library. Sunday night's real-time radio communications with Fire and EMS responders fatly contradict this claim. Was Hunter Biden Snorting Cocaine at the White House? First son Hunter Biden, who has acknowledged a prior addiction to crack cocaine, was on the White House grounds Friday before heading off to Camp David with his father for the holiday weekend. Hunter Biden has been hanging out at the White House since April. He also frequently flies on Air Force One and Marine One. Hunter Biden even has his own Secret Service detail. Photos, text messages, and other communications establish that Hunter Biden is a longtime crack-smoking drug addict. He smokes crack cocaine at his home and while driving his car. Hunter Biden also has a long history of a patronizing prostitutes, tax evasion, and possessing guns illegally. The Department of Justice "Fixed" Hunter Biden's Felony Gun Possession Case Last month, federal prosecutors in Delaware "fixed" Hunter Biden's felony tax evasion and gun possession case in a way that spared him from going to prison. According to a DOJ letter submitted to a Delaware federal court on June 20, 2023, Hunter Biden was charged with a “firearms offense – namely, one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(3) and 924 (a)(2) (2018).” Section 922 is a felony “weapons” offense, as defined in the annual DOJ statistical reports. Despite his felony gun possession charge, federal prosecutors have allowed Hunter Biden to enter a pretrial diversion program so that he can avoid a mandatory minimum 5-year prison sentence. A review of the annual DOJ statistical reports for 2001 to 2021 shows that not one of the 185,082 “weapons” cases prosecuted during this 20-year period was referred by federal prosecutors to a pretrial diversion program. U.S. v. Hunter Biden is the first and only time a federal offender has enjoyed this kind of preferential treatment in a felony firearms case. Who Supplied Hunter Biden with Cocaine? Unlike plea deals in other drug cases, federal prosecutors did not require Hunter Biden to give up the name of his drug supplier as part of his plea deal. Hunter's drug dealer is apparently still peddling cocaine in powder and crack form on the streets of Delaware and inside the White House. A more disturbing question is this: Does Hunter Biden have a Secret Service agent who is fetching powder and crack cocaine from a street drug dealer and bringing it into the White House for Hunter recreational use? We don’t know the answer to this burning question and no federal law enforcement agency seems to be interested in finding out the answer to this question. Epilogue Hunter Biden’s continued use of cocaine in any form is a violation of the conditions of his pretrial release. However, nobody inside of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice seems to care about this violation. The DOJ has babied, pampered, and protected Hunter Biden throughout its criminal investigation of him. Hunter Biden has shown all Americans that he is above the law. Now we know that Hunter Biden can smoke crack cocaine and snort powder cocaine whenever and wherever he wants. Hunter Biden will not face serious consequences for engaging in felonious conduct. Hunter Biden can do as he pleases. After all, Hunter Biden is America’s First Son.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 5, 2023 An Editorial Opinion Hunter Biden needs a new stash house for his cocaine. On Sunday, White House security personnel found a stash of Hunter Biden's cocaine in the White House Library while he was vacationing with the First Family. Photos, text messages, and other communications establish that Hunter Biden is a longtime crack-smoking, tax-evading, prostitute-using, gun-toting member of the Biden family whose pending criminal case was “fixed” by federal prosecutors to shield him from imprisonment. Federal investigators cannot ask Hunter Biden whether the cocaine that was found Sunday was his because this question would force him to lie about it. If Hunter lies about his ownership and possession of the cocaine, he would be committing two new felonies: (1) obstruction of justice, and (2) making a false statement to a federal law enforcement official. What is worse, these new felonies would be occurring while Hunter Biden is awaiting a July 26, 2023 guilty plea hearing in a Delaware federal court on his other confessed crimes. The Biden family is hopelessly trapped in a nightmare experience with Hunter Biden, who is a well-known “dope head.” Hunter Biden has created one hot mess for the Biden family and all of the federal law enforcement officials who are trying so desperately trying to “fix” his criminal cases.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 7, 2023 An Editorial Opinion On Wednesday, AL.com published a “hit” piece on my fight against a recent effort by the all-white, nine member, Alabama Supreme Court to induce the U.S. Supreme Court to disbar me as an attorney. Last month, I filed a formal response in opposition to this racially motivated and retaliatory effort by the Alabama Supreme Court. The article in question is titled, “Donald Watkins challenges US Supreme Court law license suspension after Alabama disbarment.” The article is riddled with false and inaccurate statements of fact. This article was written by AL.com reporter Howard Koplowitz, who filed a personal bankruptcy petition in a Birmingham federal court on April 22, 2019. Howard Koplowitz's personal bankruptcy filing has never been publicly exposed until today. This is true even though Koplowitz co-wrote a nationally circulated article about the city of Fairfield, Alabama's May 2020 bankruptcy filing. Koplowitz's article on Fairfield's bankruptcy subjected the city and its residents to scorn and ridicule inside the state's predominantly white communities. [Click here to read Howard Koplowitz's bankruptcy petition.] In contrast to Howard Koplowitz, I have NEVER filed a personal bankruptcy petition. After Koplowitz published his character assassination article, I learned that his “hit” piece had been orchestrated by operatives who are closely tied to the Atlanta-based Southern Company and the Alabama Supreme Court. In recent months, I have been critical of both entities in my news reporting. Over the past four decades, The Birmingham News, together with its management company (Alabama Media Group, LLC) and its parent company (Advance Local Media), has repeatedly tried to assassinate my character and destroy my international businesses. This journalistic misconduct has now morphed into a crusade. Howard Koplowitz's article was not the first time an AL.com reporter has tried a drive-by character assassination attempt on me. On December 11, 2016, AL.com columnist/reporter John Archibald published an unprovoked "hit" piece on me. After I called Archibald out publicly for his unethical piece of journalism, he publicly apologized to me on my Facebook page and I forgave him. The News' editorial cartoon below epitomizes AL.com's non-stop effort to discredit me as an international entrepreneur and a competitor in the news business. As you can see, the News published the same kind of racist cartoon on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967. Both cartoons are designed to appeal to the worst instincts in the News' white readers. We must always remember that the News has a long, ugly, and well-documented history of participating in Department of Justice/FBI official and unofficial COINTELPRO counter-intelligence activities that were designed to discredit and destroy black civil rights leaders from 1956 to the present. Dr. King was one of the News’ earliest targets of the program. I became a target of the News in 1988 due to my legal representation of the city of Birmingham and Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., in a long string of successful court cases and the multimillion dollar attorney's fees I was paid for winning all of my cases. In 2019, John Archibald made up a fake racist quotation and attributed it to me in a published story. After I threatened to sue the Alabama Media Group, AL.com formally retracted Archibald's fake racist quote and publicly apologized for publishing it The Alabama Supreme Court's Strange "Disbarment" of a Law License that Had Expired I retired from the active practice of law in 2019. However, I renewed my Alabama state Bar license twice after I retired. The last renewed license expired on September 30, 2021. Many readers are surprised by the fact that I renewed my license for two consecutive years while I was incarcerated as a well-known "political prisoner" from 2019 to 2022. On November 25, 2019, the Alabama Bar Association issued me License No. 12959 and a Bar ID card for the period of October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020. On September 1, 2020, the Alabama Bar Association also issued me License No. 532 and a Bar ID card for the period of October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021. The Alabama Supreme Court "disbarment" order that was referenced in Howard Koplowitz's article was strange because it was issued on December 27, 2021 -- three months after my Alabama Bar license had expired. In effect, the Court disbarred a law license that was no longer in effect. What is more, the Court's purported “disbarment” of me occurred only after I openly challenged the all-white makeup of the Alabama Supreme Court in a September 2021 Notice of Appeal I filed with the Court. The Alabama Supreme Court is led by Confederate-flag waving Chief Justice Tom Parker, who is still fighting for the South in the Civil War. I fully understand that I am NOT the kind of "Negro" that Tom Parker and his band of fellow justices find acceptable, nor do I want to be that "Negro." Fortunately, I am a retired attorney who lives in California and works on energy-related projects around the world. As such, I have no need for an Alabama Bar license. AL.com’s Undisclosed $16 Million Conflict of Interest AL.com has never publicly disclosed that it has a $16 million conflict of interest problem with Donald V. Watkins. This conflict of interest arises from a $16 million arbitration award that I entered (as an arbitrator) on December 30, 2002, in favor of plaintiffs Sherry Horn, Hugh Stewart, Kameron Hyde, Jesse Glass, and James and Teresa McLendon and against The Birmingham News Company. My arbitration award was affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004. Both the arbitration panel and Alabama Supreme Court found that the News defrauded the plaintiffs by intentionally, repeatedly, and falsely misrepresenting to them that their dealership franchises would be renewed so long as they performed their work satisfactorily. These franchisees performed their contractual obligations in an outstanding manner. In making this material misrepresentation repeatedly, the News committed multiple acts of fraud against the plaintiffs, who distributed the News throughout the state of Alabama. The fraud committed by the News was so egregious that more than $10 million in punitive damages were awarded to the plaintiffs and affirmed on appeal. The $16 million award made this case one of the largest fraud cases in Alabama history. Yet, the News never published a story about its judicially determined fraudulent conduct. The white senior management executives at the News who perpetrated this massive fraud scheme against the plaintiffs were not criminally prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Birmingham because the News had been a longtime, reliable, and highly trusted COINTELPRO media participant. The federal law enforcement establishment in Birmingham had always been able to count on the News to attack the credibility of strong black activists for social, economic, political, and environmental justice. Southern Company Money Controls AL.com Reporting AL.com bills itself as the state's largest media organization. In reality, AL.com is little more than a sports rag sheet and public relations tool for the Southern Company and its Alabama Power Company affiliate. AL.com, which begs for donations at the beginning of its so-called “news” stories, is a dying news media platform that is often propped up financially by laundered money that is sourced from the Southern Company and its affiliates. This previously undisclosed Southern Company-AL.com financial relationship is the subject of an upcoming article. I am the journalist who investigated the Southern Company this year and reported on its greed, corruption, accounting fraud, and racketeering activities. AL.com did not do so. In 2017, I extensively covered the reported rape of University of Alabama honors student Megan Rondini, which is referenced in Howard Koplowitz's “hit” piece. AL.com did not do so. I have frequently exposed the continuing role played by the Birmingham U.S. Attorney’s office in the informal but ongoing COINTELPRO program. In 2019, AL.com’s continuing role in this program was confirmed by a former top prosecutor in the office. Because of the News' soiled reputation as an active COINTELPRO participant, AL.com has never endeavored to expose or criticize the misconduct of Birmingham-based FBI agents and/or Department of Justice officials. Since 2021, I have aggressively attacked the all-white makeup of the Alabama Supreme Court in a state that is 26% black. To me, the state's all-white Supreme Court represents a form of modern-day apartheid within Alabama's court system. As expected, AL.com has steered completely clear of this thorny subject. Epilogue Negative media stories about me usually emanate from white controlled, Alabama-based media organizations that are funded directly or indirectly by the Southern Company and its extensive network of business partners and major vendors. The Alabama Political Reporter, Yellowhammer News, AL.com, and Steve Flowers' Blog are a few of the media organizations in this captive and compromised group of online news platforms. Given Howard Koplowitz's shaky financial condition, he is a prime candidate for those who want to lure reporters at these weak media organizations and entice them into writing and publishing drive-by character assassination articles. Howard Koplowitz is the latest bankrupt AL.com reporter who has written and published character assassination articles on me. As mentioned earlier, John Archibald was the first AL.com reporter to do so. Archibald filed his personal bankruptcy petition on October 23, 2003. Archibald tried to keep his bankruptcy filing on the "down-low." In 2011, Archibald was finally busted for lying about his bankruptcy filing. Ironically, it was a Southern Company operative who busted Archibald publicly. As my readers know by now, I am “unbought” and “unbossed.” My news reports are the result of rock solid investigative journalism. They are also free of cost, free of ads, and free of spin. I am financially independent and no one can buy my loyalty or compromise my journalistic integrity. There is nothing AL.com can do to stop me from reporting the cold, hard, truth on matters of significant public interest. Occasionally, AL.com will provide an Internet platform for financially struggling reporters like Howard Koplowitz and John Archibald to throw spit balls at me. So be it! Today, AL.com serves in the drum major role for a Confederate-flag waving Chief Justice Tom Parker and his merry band of 18 all-white, Old South, appellate judges and justices as they whistle "Dixie" and march proudly into Alabama’s second “Redemption” period.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 10, 2023 Yesterday, Southern Nuclear Power Company operators tried to resume power ascension testing at the Southern Company’s Vogtle Unit 3 nuclear reactor near Waynesboro, Georgia. However, the reactor scrammed when 45 percent power was reached due to a problem with the reactor pumps that caused low coolant flow. A "scram" is an emergency shutdown of the unit. The unit is still at zero power. This important update was posted today by Edwin Lyman, the Director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. This organization works to make nuclear power safer and more secure. As we have reported previous, Unit 3 is fatally flawed from a design, engineering, construction, and quality control standpoint. What is more, tests results at Vogtle 3 have been falsified. The independent nuclear experts we have consulted expect Unit 3 to experience a Level 7 nuclear event within 90 days after it becomes fully operational. When this catastrophic event occurs, an estimated 4,000 to 60,000 people within a 40-mile radius of Vogtle will die from radiation poisoning. A Level 7 nuclear event is on the scale of the worst nuclear disasters at Chernobyl in the old Soviet Union in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. The Southern Company’s political influence peddling at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, and Georgia Public Service Commission is too great to prevent this catastrophic event from happening. Politics and the flow of "dark money" contributions have trumped public safety at Vogtle Unit 3. President Joe Biden and his White House have been too preoccupied with Hunter Biden’s acknowledged crack-cocaine addiction and related-criminal problems to pay any attention to the imminent nuclear dangers at lurking Vogtle 3. The silver lining in this catastrophe-in-the-making is this: Our published investigative reports on Vogtle Units 3 and 4 now provide the legal foundation necessary for federal and state prosecutors to charge NRC commissioners, Georgia PSC members, Southern Company executives, and others who acted in concert with them, with mass murder for the 4,000 to 60,000 deaths that are expected to result from the Level 7 nuclear event at Unit 3. I fully expect their criminal trials to resemble the post-World War 11 Nuremberg trials. Federal and state regulators likely know what we know about Vogtle Unit 3 – it is a deathtrap waiting to meltdown. The deaths and property destruction from this Level 7 event will be horrendous. The regulators and corporate executives who caused and/or contributed to this catastrophic event should be mindful of this historical fact: No group of government officials and corporate executives in the Western world that has engaged in corrupt practices and reckless conduct that killed 4,000 to 60,000 innocent civilians has escaped criminal prosecution for mass murder.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 11, 2023 An Editorial Opinion On August 9, 2022, I predicted that Donald Trump would become the Republican nominee for president in 2024. This prediction is on track to becoming true. On August 22, 2022, I predicted that Trump would win the 2024 election. After I made this prediction, Trump was indicted on New York state criminal charges and federal criminal charges. Trump may face additional criminal charges in Washington, Atlanta, and New Jersey between now and the election. In my view, these criminal cases will not derail Trump's comeback bid. On August 2, 2015, I became the first American journalist to publicly predict Trump's 2016 election victory. My prediction was made a mere three weeks after Trump announced his candidacy. This prediction became true in January of 2017. On March 20, 2020, I predicted Trump's defeat in 2020, which was caused by Trump's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This prediction became true in January of 2021. For the record, the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump. He lost the race by more than 7 million legally cast votes. Based upon an incredible display of inner strength and his keen political instincts, and without any meaningful help from his mediocre criminal defense teams, Donald Trump is poised to pull off the greatest political comeback victory in the history of American presidential politics. Here is why I predict that Trump will win in 2024. Trump's GOP Since his 2020 defeat, Donald Trump has ascended to "deity" status within the Republican Party. The GOP is no longer a political party; it is a personality cult that worships Trump. During his term in office (January 2017 to January 2021), Trump was able to add three diehard right-wing conservatives -- Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – to the U.S. Supreme Court. These three appointees gave the GOP a firm six votes on the Court, which now proudly and openly operates as the judicial wing of the Republican Party. Trump’s Supreme Court has killed the federal right to an abortion, thrashed affirmative action, curbed tribal rights for Native-Americans, invalidated state gun-control legislation, abandoned judicial ethics, voided student loan debt relief for college graduates, okayed intentional discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans, and taken aim at a host of other targets on the GOP’s political "hit list." In January 2022, GOP members of the U.S. Senate successfully killed legislation that would have restored much needed vitality to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was severely gutted on June 25, 2013, in the Alabama case of Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). Trump and his cult followers have also galvanized a movement against non-white migrants seeking to enter the United States at the U.S.-Mexican border, while enthusiastically welcoming immigrants from European countries. During his presidency, Trump resurrected the Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 "Operation Wetback" program at the southern border. Curbing people of color from entering America, via legal or illegal means, is a major driver of support for Trump’s re-election campaign. State and Federal Criminal Prosecutions Pose No Threat to Trump Donald Trump is facing criminal charges in New York for “hush money” payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. He is also facing federal criminal charges in Miami over his possession of highly classified national security and defense documents in his Mar-a-Lago the home. Trump is likely to face additional federal charges for inciting the January 6th Insurrection and charges for possessing classified national security documents at his golf club in New Jersey. Likewise, Trump is expected to be charged later this summer on state voter fraud charges in Georgia. According to numerous political polls, none of Trump's criminal cases imposes a threat to his viability as a political candidate. He is the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination. It is highly unlikely that Trump’s federal criminal cases will be tried before the 2024 election. Once Trump becomes president, he is expected to use the full executive powers of his office to quash the federal and state criminal cases. Trump will have a plethora of political and executive tools in his presidential toolbox to quash all of these cases. If Trump faces Joe Biden in the 2024 election, Trump will win by a landslide. Biden appears to be increasingly frail, weak, inept, and senile with the passage of time. On most days, Joe Biden looks and acts like a character in "The Walking Dead" movies and television series. Meanwhile, Trump’s robust political rallies in “Red States” are turning into rockstar events. Trump's energy level is high at these campaign events. GOP Voter Suppression Laws Enhance Trump’s Chances for Victory in 2024 Today, a majority of the 50 states have enacted various forms of voter suppression laws that enhance Donald Trump’s chances for victory in 2024. What is more, these new voter suppression laws are generally protected by Trump's Supreme Court. The lone exception to this rule is the Court's recent decision in Milligan v. Allen (June 8, 2023), a voter suppression case in which the Alabama legislature used an egregious form of “in-your-face” racial gerrymandering to minimize the number of potential black Congressional districts in the state. Milligan v. Allen is a symbolic victory, rather than substantive one, because Alabama’s lone black Democratic Congresswoman routinely receives 96% of her campaign financing from GOP donors. As a result, she regularly tows the GOP party-line on all economic empowerment issues that matter to Republicans. This is why her predominantly black political constituents remain in severe economic distress even though a Democratic president has occupied the White House for 9 of her 12 years Congress. Barring a political miracle, a second black Congress member from Alabama will likely to be cut from the same cloth as the state's current black Congresswoman. Since Trump’s defeat in 2020, Republican-controlled legislatures have empowered election officials to establish new state election rules, purge voter rolls, decide election contests, reject legally cast votes, and decertify election results that they do not like. The GOP has also successfully placed activist election deniers in thousands of poll worker positions across American. The only voter suppression tools from America's past that Republican-controlled state legislatures have not resurrected are poll taxes and literacy tests. The GOP voter suppression mechanisms that have been resurrected are tried and tested tools for preserving white political dominance in America. They are modern-day adaptations of the proven voter suppression mechanisms that flourished in Confederate states from 1870 to 1965. Epilogue I am a longtime political Independent and student of history and political science. So that we are clear, I do not support Donald Trump or Joe Biden for president. Both men are deeply flawed. However, I am a realist who always measures the winds of political change in America. My political predictions are based upon my objective measurement of these changes and their impact in the political arena. Trump’s criminal cases will not prevent his re-election or return to the presidency. He has found a creative pathway to neutralize these impediments without using highly skilled criminal defense lawyers. Additionally, neither Joe Biden, nor Kamala Harris, is strong enough to defeat Donald Trump and his political forces in 2024. Because of Biden's and Harris' collective weaknesses as political leaders, women, African-Americans, Native-Americans, LGBTQ Americans, and other historically disadvantaged minority groups have lost more federally protected rights under their watch than they have under any other presidential administration in modern history. Barring divine intervention from God, Donald Trump will become the next president of the United States. Trump will go down in history as the 45th and 47th President of the United States. After he assumes office in January of 2025, Trump is going to mete out severe political punishment to: (a) participants in the January 6th Congressional Committee hearings, (b) DOJ criminal prosecution team members, (c) New York state criminal prosecution team members, and (d) Georgia criminal prosecution team members. Trump's ruthlessness in this regard will match that of his presidential role models -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Pinping. Trump will likely pardon all of the defendants who were convicted of crimes arising from their organization of and participation in the January 6th insurrection. Finally, the American public has lost confidence in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Donald Trump is the modern-day Republican Party. Trump’s margin of victory over Biden will be the greatest landslide since Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 13, 2023; Updated on July 17, 2023 You can read it for yourself. Balch & Bingham, the Southern Company's longtime law firm, prepared a Secret Plan to betray more than 4,000 of the giant utility's electricity customers and condemn them to an agonizing death experience. This Plan was reduced to writing and successfully implemented. The death toll from the Plan's implementation in Alabama, a so-called "pro life" state, is staggering. The Plan describes how black Birmingham public officials, community leaders, civil rights activists, and social media influencers teamed within a network of Southern Company affiliates, vendors, business alliance partners, and political allies to condemn more than 4,000 residents in North Birmingham to a long, slow, painful death from their lifelong exposure to toxic pollutants in the air and ground in their economically struggling neighborhoods. As discussed in a September 1, 2022, investigative article published by ProPublica, these North Birmingham neighborhoods have been saturated with deadly toxins as a result of a century of industrial pollution by companies closely allied with the Southern Company. The Plan was written by Scott Phillips and Trey Glenn, who worked as consultants for the Southern Company’s primary law firm -- Balch & Bingham. Both men are white. The Plan lays out how the Southern Company, working in concert with its business alliance networking partners, could defeat an effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rescue the North Birmingham residents in the Collegeville, Fairmont, and Harriman Park from the death and despair that flowed from their extensive exposure to air and ground pollution. About 92.5 % of the residents in these three neighborhoods are black. The Plan speaks for itself. It even includes a color-coded chart that identified individuals and organizations that the Southern Company could use to play a key role in selling out the residents of North Birmingham. Those who participated in the sellout of these residents did their jobs, and did them well. As a result, the residents of North Birmingham got royally screwed, in every conceivable way. Black Leaders Sold Out North Birmingham Residents for "Pocket Change" Between 2013 and 2017, Birmingham area public officials, community leaders, civil rights leaders, and their cronies and influencers worked in concert with each other to sell out more than 4,000 North Birmingham residents for mere "pocket change" from the Southern Company and its network of business alliance partners. Alabama Power Company and Balch & Bingham organized the effort for the benefit of U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company, all of whom are major industrial polluters. Balch & Bingham has a suite of offices inside the Birmingham headquarters of Alabama Power Company. The residents of North Birmingham cannot escape their death sentence because they live in housing projects and/or single-family residences that have no fair market value. The air they breathe and the soil beneath their feet are the most contaminated in any place in America. These residents are slowly dying from cancer and a host of respiratory problems, all of which were caused by the heavy industrial polluters whom the EPA targeted to pay for a massive, multi-billion dollar cleanup of their neighborhoods. This is the worst sellout of African-Americans in the U.S. since 623 poor black men in Macon County, Alabama 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. Known as the “Tuskegee Syphilis Study,” these men were tracked to their deaths from 1932 to 1972. Black nurses and support staff participated in the Study, along with white federal and state public health officials. They knew that penicillin was available to treat the men who were syphilitic, but they intentionally withheld this medicine from them. This inhuman act allowed most of the 445 syphilitic men to die a long, slow, painful death without any medical treatment for their condition. History Has Repeated Itself in North Birmingham In September 2013, the EPA began an effort to list the 35th Avenue Superfund site in North Birmingham on the National Priority List (NPL) and expand the site to include polluted properties located in the City of Tarrant. The EPA sent letters to U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company stating that they might be listed as additional “Potentially Responsible Parties (PRP)” for the 35th Avenue Superfund site cleanup of the dangerous toxins in North Birmingham and the City of Tarrant. A NPL listing would have forced these industrial polluters to clean up the North Birmingham sites at their corporate expense and on an expedited basis. Prior to 2013, the EPA had established the 35th Avenue Superfund site but had not listed it on the NPL. Additionally, the EPA had only listed the Walter Coke, Inc., as a PRP. U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and The Drummond Company are longtime networking partners and political allies of the Southern Company and Alabama Power Company. They were vehemently opposed to this EPA initiative. The Southern Company, acting through Alabama Power, led a sustained and coordinated effort to block the NPL listing and expanded EPA cleanup of North Birmingham. Rather than pooling their corporate resources to clean up the North Birmingham Superfund site, the Southern Company and its network of heavy industrial polluters decided it was cheaper to get Birmingham’s black public officials, community leaders, media organizations, and civil rights activists to attack and undermine the EPA's expanded cleanup and NPL initiatives. This Southern Company's decision to place a chokehold on these EPA Superfund initiatives had deadly consequences for the residents of North Birmingham. What is worse, the lives of these residents did not matter to the black or white participants who helped the Southern Company execute the Plan. The lives of these 4,000 residents certainly meant nothing to James Y. Kerr, II, the Southern Company's general counsel, chief compliance officer, and chief of staff to then-CEO Thomas A. Fanning. Kerr, a closet racist with an “Old South” dismissive attitude towards blacks, oversaw the implementation of the Plan with his close friend, former Alabama Power CEO Mark Crosswhite. As James Kerr stated on the audio clip of a 2018 call between Kevin B. Forbes, chief executive officer of CDLU, and Kerr excerpted below, the nightmarish experience of the North Birmingham residents was a nothing but a “hypothesis," which Kerr coldly and quickly dismissed. The Southern Company's Callous Attitude Killed Hundreds of North Birmingham Residents Over the Years Without Batting an Eye The Plan’s stated goals are simple and straight-forward: 1. Avoid an NPL Listing, 2. Hijack the North Birmingham Community Coalition, a neighborhood advocacy group that worked with the EPA to clean up the heavy industrial pollution in North Birmingham, 3. Fragment the proponents of the EPA Superfund cleanup, 4. Undermine the credibility of the proponents of the EPA cleanup, and 5. Align the Plan’s participants with the Drummond Team, the ABC Coke Team, Steve Bradley (a longtime Alabama Power’s public relations operative), and the Trey Glenn/Scott Phillips Team to defeat an expanded, expedited, massive, expensive, EPA-mandated cleanup of North Birmingham The Plan, which is labeled the “Community Strategy, 35th Avenue Superfund Site, North Birmingham, AL,” was hidden from public view behind the cloak of an “Attorney-Client Work Product, Privileged & Confidential" designation. The Southern Company and Alabama Power used Balch & Bingham to oversee the day-to-day execution of the Plan to use black public officials, community leaders, media organizations, and civil rights activists to "hijack" the North Birmingham Community Coalition for the purpose of suppressing the environmental protection rights of residents in the heavily polluted North Birmingham neighborhoods. According to Balch & Bingham billing records, then-Birmingham city councilor William Parker met with Balch & Bingham partners Joel Gilbert and/or Grady Moore and/or Michael Davis seven times between July 2014 and November 2014. They had conference calls or emailed back and forth at least three times between July 2014 and November 2014. Joel Gilbert was a co-defendant with former state Rep. Oliver Robinson in the bribery scheme. Gilbert was convicted of bribery, as was Oliver Robinson and Drummond executive David Roberson. The Plan was used as an exhibit by prosecutors during the 2018 bribery trial of Joel Gilbert and David Roberson. Neither the Southern Company, nor its executives, was criminally charged for organizing the Oliver Robinson bribery scheme and funding it with more than $360,000 in contributions from Alabama Power and its networking partners. According to Balch & Bingham billing records, Joel Gilbert prepared written materials for Councilor William Parker and then-Mayor William Bell to use in meetings with the EPA. According to Balch & Bingham billing records, Joel Gilbert drafted a letter for Mayor William Bell to send to the EPA expressing his concerns about placing the North Birmingham site on the National Priority List for an expedited cleanup of North Birmingham at the polluters' expense. Bell acknowledges a meeting with Gilbert, but denies that he sent the letter drafted by Gilbert to the EPA. In 2012, the City of Birmingham sought to enter into a contract with White, Arnold & Dowd (Resolution No, 2269-12): “a Contract for Legal Services with the law firm of White, Arnold & Dowd P.C., in substantially the same form as on file in the Office of the City Clerk, under which White, Arnold & Dowd P.C. will provide legal representation to the City with respect to environmental issues in the North Birmingham, Collegeville, Harriman Park, and Fairmont Communities for an amount not to exceed $250,000 for a term ending June 30, 2013.” White, Arnold & Dowd is headed by Mark White, an attorney who has represented Alabama Power and its former CEO, Mark Crosswhite, for many years. Crosswhite specifically approved of the creation of Alliance for Jobs and the Economy (AJE) as the vehicle for bribing Oliver Robinson. As described in a July 12, 2023, article published by the Energy and Policy Institute, White, Arnold & Dowd is one of the Southern Company's "go to" law firms for handling messy problems. Attorney U.W. Clemon and Francesca DePalma, who were members of White, Arnold & Dowd at the time, were designated as the attorneys who would handle EPA-related matters under the city’s proposed contract. Who Was Operating in the Shadows? Emails between U.W. Clemon and Trey Glenn, a second consultant hired by Balch & Bingham to devise and implement the Plan, showed Glenn strategizing with U.W. Clemon and agreeing that Clemon would handle Drummond’s outreach to the North Birmingham Community Coalition. Even though the City of Birmingham paid White, Arnold & Dowd $50,000 in February 2012 to work on EPA-related matters, then-former Councilor Maxine Parker was unsuccessful in getting the city council to approve the proposed $250,000 contract in April 2012. The city council members who opposed the contract smelled a "rat." As explained below, the political winds on the city council changed in 2015 and the White, Arnold & Dowd contract was later approved for a lesser amount. Notes prepared by Joel Gilbert identified several contractors who were paid for work under the Plan. In addition to Oliver Robinson, Hezekiah Jackson, the former Birmingham Chapter NAACP President, was paid for speaking in favor of Alabama Power at a PSC rate hearings in 2013. Birmingham consultant Catrena Norris Carter was paid by Scott Phillips’ firm to perform community outreach work in furtherance of the Plan. Tina Bennett, an attorney who attended the EPA's Environmental Justice Bootcamp, was paid for her work on the project, which included notarizing affidavits for Get Smart Tarrant (the name that Oliver Robinson gave to his effort to suppress environmental justice rights for the residents of North Birmingham). In January 2014, the City of Birmingham hired several contractors for EPA-related work, three of whom are listed in the chart presented in the secret plan. Gizelle Bryant, Alice Gordon, Erika Liles, and Scottie McClaney were paid for EPA-related professional consulting. Bryant, Gordon and McClaney received $30,000 each, while Liles receives $42,000. According to their city contract, Bryant, Liles and McClaney were required to develop a plan to support the EPA cleanup process, promote public education, and seek sources of private funding for redevelopment efforts. Alice Gordon was hired to enhance and coordinate communication efforts regarding environmental efforts, along with coordinating a visit to a Superfund site in Spartanburg, S.C. The City of Birmingham also paid White, Arnold, and Dowd an additional $100,000 for EPA-related work, even though Mark White was representing Alabama Power Company CEO Mark Crosswhite. From 2015 until his firing in 2022, Mark Crosswhite worked hard to keep the identified industrial polluters from being added to the NPL list. Crosswhite was fired because (a) he approved a covert surveillance operation that targeted Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning and his girlfriend, Kimberly Tanaka, in 2017 and (b) the surveillance operation became public in 2022 (after Fanning married another woman). Mark Crosswhite worked closely with James Y. Kerr, II, to achieve the goals of the secret Plan in a way that would create plausible deniability for the Southern Company in the event the Plan became public. In March 2015, the Southern Company, acting through its Alabama Power affiliate, incorporated a shell company named the Alliance for Jobs and the Economy (“AJE”). AJE was headed by Drummond executive David Roberson, who decided whether to pay Oliver Robinson and other participants in the scheme from AJE or Drummond funds that were then routed through Balch & Bingham before being paid to the Foundation. Balch & Bingham was not indicted for its money laundering role. Likewise, neither Alabama Power, nor Mark Crosswhite, was not indicted for organizing the Oliver Robinson bribery scheme. AJE charged hefty annual membership fees to prominent companies in the area. The Drummond Company, Thompson Tractor Company, ACIPCO, U.S. Steel, Alabama Power, Nucor Steel, Protective Life Corp., and Regions Bank paid at least $360,000 into AJE for the bribery of Robinson. None of the eight AJE financial sponsors was indicted for providing the money that was used to bribe Oliver Robinson. In September 2015, Oliver Robinson’s Foundation started a community outreach campaign called “Get Smart Tarrant.” This program, which was run by Robinson’s daughter Amanda, focused its efforts on portraying the EPA involvement in Birmingham as bad for the local economy and scientifically unreliable. She was paid for this work. Oliver Robinson's daughter was not indicted, nor was his wife Sakina Robinson.. Oliver Robinson's work continued until May 2016. It was funded by Balch & Bingham, which was reimbursed by AJE or Drummond, as decided by David Roberson. Except for Oliver Robinson, none of the black leaders/influencers who brought the secret Plan to life was indicted on conspiracy charges. Their roles in the Plan have never been exposed -- until today. Epilogue The Southern Company's secret Plan was wildly successful, thanks to the complete and total sellout of North Birmingham's residents by a cadre of Birmingham's black leaders. For a $59 billion annual revenue company, the cost to the Southern Company for implementing the Plan was mere "pocket change." In this battle between "good" and "evil," the industrial polluters won and the residents of North Birmingham lost. These residents are paying for this loss with their lives. A highly suspect class action lawsuit filed by White, Arnold & Dowd and U.W. Clemon produced hefty legal fees for the plaintiffs' lawyers, but only a couple of thousand dollars for the named plaintiffs and token monetary relief for the residents of North Birmingham. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study settlement in 1974 paid the 623 surviving and deceased victims more than $9 million and provided them free healthcare for the survivors, their wives, widows, and children for life. In contrast, the class action settlement in the North Birmingham case failed to provide the victims with adequate compensation for their injuries and deaths, free healthcare, and free social services. The settlement, itself, was a sellout. Today, the Southern Company is prepared to sacrifice the lives of 4,000 to 60,000 residents who live within a 40-mile radius of its fatally flawed Vogtle Units 3 and 4 nuclear reactors near Waynesboro, Georgia. Nuclear experts expect 4,000 to 60,000 people to die from radiation poisoning as a result of a Level 7 nuclear disaster at Vogtle within 90 days after Unit 3 ascends to full power after it is placed into commercial service. No date has been announced by the Southern Company for Vogtle Unit 3 to commence commercial operations. According to our confidential sources inside the company, the Southern Company's secret Plan for North Birmingham has been modified, updated, and adapted for use in connection with the expected nuclear catastrophe at Vogtle Unit 3. The successful North Birmingham experience showed the Southern Company how a well-crafted plan of influence peddling can be bought "on the cheap" in deadly industrial contamination scenarios. The Southern Company now believes it is untouchable. ************************* Stay Tuned for Part II, "Everybody who is your color is not your kind, and everybody who is your kind is not your color." Part II will examine who the residents of North Birmingham can trust among city leaders (i.e., Who did not take the money to sell them out?). The article will also identify a ray of hope for these neglected and forgotten residents.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 14, 2023 An Editorial Opinion More than 4,000 residents, 92% of whom are black, are suffering and dying a long, slow, and painful death in North Birmingham and the City of Tarrant from cancer and respiratory problems so that the members of this prominent Alabama coal mining family can enjoy riches derived from industrial-scale coke producing plants that poisoned the air they breathe and the ground underneath their feet in the neighborhoods surrounding the old ABC Coke plant. Meet the Drummond family. They are presented in the chart accompanying this article. These are the family members who benefited, directly and/or indirectly, from the wealth created as a result of a century of environmental injustices that were inflicted upon 4,000 or more residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant. Sadly, black Birmingham area public officials, community activists, civil rights leaders, attorneys, and social media influencers escorted many of these North Birmingham and Tarrant residents on the marches to their deaths. These escorts gaslighted the affected residents every step of the way, from 2013 to 2022. My July 13, 2023, article titled, "Black Leaders Helped Southern Company Condemn North Birmingham Residents To A Slow, Painful Death," describes the despicable roles each participant was assigned to play in this tragic event. Many of the so-called "black leaders/influencers" who actually participated in the North Birmingham and Tarrant death marches are listed in the chart below. They literally "hijacked" the process of seeking environmental justice for these residents for the sole purpose of helping the guilty parties escape justice. The chart depicted above was prepared in 2015 by two consultants who were hired by the Southern Company's primary law firm -- Balch & Bingham. This chart was included in the Secret Plan that we publicly exposed for the first time yesterday. All total, the blacks who participated in the death marches outlined in the Secret Plan to "hijack" the environmental protection rights of the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant were reportedly paid less than $1 million to help ABC Coke, an affiliate of the Drummond Company, escape paying an estimated $150 million in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-mandated environmental cleanup costs for the company's role in polluting in the neighborhoods in North Birmingham and Tarrant. ABC Coke is one of five heavy industrial polluters listed in the bottom left side of the chart depicted in the Secret Plan. Each polluter was expected to pay an estimated $150 million in cleanup costs, for a total of $750 million. Personally, I am not going to let North Birmingham and Tarrant residents die this way without one hell of a FIGHT from me to save their lives and preserve their dignity as human beings. These residents owe me NOTHING, but I owe them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I actually give a damn about their health, safety, welfare, and quality of life. In law school, I promised Mr. Ramus Rhodes, the janitor in Farrah Hall who personally mentored me as a law student for three years, that I would NEVER allow the forces that oppose our progress in Alabama to run roughshod over the rights of poor blacks like the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant. In the 50 years since I graduated from law school, I have NEVER broken that promise. I am waging this fight for Mr. Ramus Rhodes. I will NEVER betray him or my commitment to his legacy. I am NOT "for sale" and I CARE about the full enforcement of environmental protection rights in North Birmingham and Tarrant. My FIGHT has just begun and I have a "take-no-prisoners" attitude. The suffering in North Birmingham and Tarrant must and will end -- NOW!

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 15, 2023 North Birmingham and the City of Tarrant Walter Coke, U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company, all of whom are major industrial polluters, saturated residential neighborhoods in North Birmingham and the City of Tarrant with deadly cancer-causing toxins for over a century. These polluted neighborhoods have a population of more than 4,000 residents, 92.5% of whom are black. The polluters were business alliance partners of the Atlanta-based Southern Company and Alabama Power Company. They used the Southern Company's and Alabama Power's network of compromised black leaders/influencers in Birmingham to help the polluters escape an estimated $750 million in Environmental Protection Agency-related Superfund cleanup costs in the polluted neighborhoods. In exchange for less than $1 million in 501(c)(4) “dark money” donations, campaign contributions, bribes, consultant fee payments to the girlfriends of politicians, advertising money to friendly news media outlets, and other meaningless trinkets, the black leaders/influencers depicted in the chart below put a chokehold on the EPA's efforts to make the polluters pay for the Superfund site cleanup costs and do so on an expedited basis. ABC Coke continues to pollute these neighborhoods on a daily basis. Black residents are dying as a result of its pollution. As of September 2022, the EPA had spent a measly $45 million on the Superfund site cleanup efforts in North Birmingham and Tarrant, including $3 million to renovate a city school that is sitting on poisoned land. This amount is small, pathetic, embarrassing, and humiliating. In Birmingham and Tarrant, black lives clearly did not matter to the area’s black leaders/influencers and their handlers. These black leaders/infleuncers sold out more than 4,000 of their constituents for less than $1 million. Because of this sellout, the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant combined have gotten less than 10% of the amount spent for the environmental cleanup of East Palestine, Ohio. East Palestine, Ohio On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio and spilled hazardous chemicals in the ground. East Palestine has a population of 4,457 people, 93.5% of whom are white. On February 21, 2023, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to clean up the contaminated areas in East Palestine and do so on an expedited basis. If Norfolk Southern refused, the EPA would clean up the chemical spill and charge Norfolk Southern triple the cost. In April, Norfolk Southern reported that the cleanup process in East Palestine from the February train derailment cost the company $387 million in first quarter losses. The cleanup costs are expected to top $500 million, which is more than ten times the amount that has been spent to clean up the contaminated neighborhoods in North Birmingham and Tarrant. Epilogue In East Palestine, white lives mattered to everybody. Furthermore, the city's public officials, community leaders and influencers did not sell out the residents of East Palestine. In North Birmingham and Tarrant, black lives did not matter to anybody. The sellout was total and complete.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 16, 2023 Dear Public Officials, Community Leaders, and Paid Influencers, Please ask your friends and surrogates to stop calling me about the articles I have published within the last week regarding your sellout of the residents in the North Birmingham neighborhoods of Collegeville, Fairmont, and Harriman Park, as well as the residents in the contaminated lands in the City of Tarrant. I do not want to hear anymore lame excuses for why you failed to take strong, decisive action to protect the health, safety, welfare, and lives of more than 4,000 innocent men, women, and children in these neighborhoods against the six heavy industrial polluters that poisoned them. Our men, women, and children in these neighborhoods are dying a long, slow, painful death from the contaminated air they breathe and the poisoned ground underneath their feet. Cesspools of contaminated water have developed in and around these neighborhoods. Their homes, schools, churches, and playgrounds are now toxic death pits. This is what I expect you to do: 1. Demand that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) find a way to force U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company to clean up these contaminated neighborhoods like the EPA forced Norfolk Southern to clean up the hazardous chemical spill from a freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, 2023. Where there is a will, there is a way! 2. The estimated cost of the North Birmingham and Tarrant cleanup in 2013 was $900 million. Since 2013, only Walter Coke, Inc., which is now Bluestone Coke, has been forced to participate in the EPA cleanup effort. The cost of the cleanup in North Birmingham and Tarrant has mushroomed into a $1 billion project today. U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company escaped environmental justice because of your efforts. They must now pay at least $150 million for their fair share of the cleanup costs. The EPA can kick in the rest of the money. Remember, it took $500 million to clean up East Palestine, Ohio, and the contamination there was very mild when compared to the level of air, water, and ground pollution in North Birmingham and Tarrant. 3. The cleanup must be performed on an expedited basis. East Palestine was cleaned up in five months (February to July). With the deployment of adequate and proper resources, North Birmingham and Tarrant can be cleaned up in five months, as well. 4. The cleanup must include funding for the construction of a new schools in and around North Birmingham on safe sites. I am sick and tired of innocent school children, who are compelled by state law to attend public schools, going in and out of buildings that are located on or near the most toxic soil in America. This condition may not bother you, but it makes me angry. 5. The six companies that polluted North Birmingham and Tarrant must offer the adversely affected residents housing relocation assistance, which must include an offer to purchase their homes based upon the median square foot price for an American home of the same size. This assistance must also include the payment of professional moving costs. A payment model of fair market value for these contaminated homes does not work because homes located on heavily polluted property have no market value. 6. The six companies that polluted North Birmingham and Tarrant must establish and fully capitalize a healthcare fund for the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant that provides free healthcare for life for each man, woman, and child living in the residence, as of January 1, 2013. These residents are suffering from all forms of cancer and a plethora of respiratory illnesses. You must make sure they have first class medical care on par with what the residents of Mountain Brook enjoy. 7. The six companies that polluted North Birmingham and Tarrant must establish and fully fund a social services fund for the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant that provides a broad range of free social services for life for each man, woman, and child living in the residence, as of January 1, 2013. 8. Many residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant have already died because of their exposure to the air, water, and ground contamination caused by these six industrial polluters. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr needs to get ready to commence criminal investigations and second-degree murder prosecutions for the needless deaths of the innocent men, women, and children who died from their exposure to these toxins. This is why we elected you. The City Knew About the Toxic Poisons in 1933 The City of Birmingham has known since 1933 that these six polluters were poisoning the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant. In May of 1933, City Engineer A.J. Hawkins released a city map that year that ranked city neighborhoods and communities as follows: 1. Best 2. Still Desirable 3. Definitely Declining 4. Hazardous 5. Negro Concentration 6. Commercial and Industrial 7. Undeveloped North Birmingham is located in the "Negro Concentration" zone. Tarrant is adjacent to North Birmingham. Here is the 1933 zoning map and legend: Black neighborhoods were ranked less desirable than those areas that were known to be contaminated with hazardous waste. In 1933, black Birmingham residents could do very little to improve the quality of their neighborhoods. The delivery of basic city services to “Negro Concentration” neighborhoods was pretty much an afterthought. Today, you are in a position to change this tragic paradigm, but you can't do it if you are afraid of these polluters and their political allies. The residents in North Birmingham and Tarrant want the industrial polluters who poisoned the air, ground, and water in their community to clean it up. They deserve this relief. It's long overdue. Today, five of the polluters are in an unholy alliance with the Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, and seven other networking partners. Epilogue Any public official who lacks the courage to demand the environmental justice relief outlined above needs to resign, now. Public officials in East Palestine, Ohio showed you what environmental justice looks like, how much it costs, and what you must do to get it. Do your job and secure the environmental justice that the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant deserve. Quit wasting your time trying to stop me from writing negative articles about you. I have a cache of corporate documents that the Southern Company, Alabama Power, and Balch & Bingham prepared and kept on you. These documents describe how they compromised, corrupted, and controlled you. These documents are disgusting and embarrassing. I am still in a state of shock by what I read in them. I expect you to act with dispatch. This is a public health emergency. I expect you to be as aggressive in the pursuit of environmental justice as the public officials in East Palestine were. I want for the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant what I want for myself -- a safe, clean neighborhood where they can pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Above all, I do not want another innocent child in North Birmingham and Tarrant to die because of your weakness, indifference to human life, and/or lack of courage. Meanwhile, I will continue to write my articles about your neglect of duty and failures as leaders. If you want positive news coverage on my news media platforms, earn it. Sincerely, Donald V. Watkins

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 17, 2023 I have been working in the global oil and gas industry since 2011. The company I co-founded, Nabirm Energy Services (PTY) Ltd., is headquartered in Windhoek, Namibia (West Africa). I have learned so much about oil and gas from our founding Chief Executive Office, Olayinka Arowolo. As you can see from his resume, Olayinka Arowolo is brilliant. Most people do not realize that only 46% of oil produced in the world goes into making gasoline. The other 54% goes into making medicine, cosmetics, plastics, synthetic rubber, cleaning products, asphalt, and a variety of ordinary household products. We will always need oil. The world cannot function without it. Do not choose to be ignorant about the things that matter in life. Knowledge is power! Never let others limit your ability to learn new things or your vision.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 21, 2023 Who is this man? Here are the two clues you need to solve the riddle: How can this man -- this faithful public servant -- accept millions of dollars in undisclosed "gifts" from his billionaire "friends," fail to report the value of these gifts on his federal tax returns, and not get indicted on federal income tax evasion charges? Here's the clue you need to answer this question: Why does this man matter to all Americans? Because he has hijacked the U.S. Supreme Court and is flooring this judicial "car" in a reverse gear and at warp speed for the benefit of a small circle of billionaires who "tipped" him with generous, undisclosed "gifts." Where is U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland? Why is he always missing in the cases that matter the most to ordinary Americans who pay their fair share of taxes on declared income? Oh, I forgot. Merrick Garland is extremely busy managing the FBI/DOJ coverup of Hunter Biden's various federal criminal offenses. We can't disturb him right now. Speaking of Joe Biden, I wish Merrick Garland or somebody in the White House would tell the President to acknowledge his granddaughter in Arkansas. I can't stand a so-called "family man" who acknowledges some of his grandchildren, but not all of them. By the way, who is running America today? It can't be Joe Biden because he is fragile and senile. Is Kamala Harris in charge of the country today? Thank God it's Friday! I am going to have a drink. I will be back at my work on Sunday!