By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 14, 2022 I told you on November 17, 2020 that Donald Trump was not leaving the White House, despite being defeated by more than 7 million votes. I told you Trump was planning to invoke marital law and military force to stay in power. I did not know at the time that white supremacy and paramilitary groups would join forces and converge on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to wage war with Capitol police officers in an effort to help Trump succeed in his attempted coup d'etat. This is what happened. It was a violent attempt to install authoritarian rule in the United States. Thanks to the riveting hearing of the January 6th Select House Committee in Congress, we now know the details of the plot to overthrow the government of the United States. What is shocking is how close Trump came to pulling it off. Sadly, there are millions of Americans who still worship this New York thug and con artist as though he is deity. What is more, Trump does not give a damn about any of his political allies and followers. Just ask Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) and former Alabama U.S. Senator/U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama). Trump used, abused, and screwed both of these men. As Trump proceeded to implement his coup d'etat, some of the players who were needed to pull it off broke away from him. For example, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper refused to participate in the coup and was promptly fired by Trump on November 9, 2020. Attorney General William Barr, a Trump loyalist, ordered all 94 U.S. Attorney's offices in America to investigate Trump's bogus election fraud claims. Barr left Trump at the end of December 2020 after calling the President's claims of election fraud "bullshit." Richard Pilger, the Department of Justice's chief of the Election Crimes Division, refused to go along with Trump's scheme to intimidate election officials in swing states into refusing to certifying the results of their state voter tallies. Pilger resigned on November 9, 2022. Pence, who was silent in November and December 2020 finally broke with Trump on January 5, 2021 when he told the defeated president that he was going to certify the 2020 election results and each state's electors on January 6, 2021. The list of coup participants goes on and on. Thankfully, more of them withdrew from the coup plot than those who continued with it. Will Attorney General Merrick Garland Indict Trump? I do not think Attorney General Merrick Garland has the "balls" to indict and prosecute Donald Trump for inciting the January 6th Insurrection at the Capitol, even though five people died that day at the scene. Garland seems to be an updated version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Both men look good on paper. Mueller had Trump within his prosecutorial grip during his investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Mueller lost his nerve and let Trump go free. The Civil Rights Act of 1968, which was passed in response to the riots of 1967 by disenchanted black Americans, provides up to five years in prison for anyone traveling interstate or using interstate facilities (including mail and telephone) "to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot." It defines a riot as an action by three or more people involving threats of violence. The first person prosecuted under the Act was a young black leader of the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee, H. Rap Brown, who had made a militant, angry speech in Maryland, just before a racial disturbance there. Later the Act was used against antiwar demonstrators in Chicago known as the "Chicago Eight," seven of whom were white and one of whom was black. Trump's speech was far more militant than any speeches given by H. Rap Brown or the Chicago Eight. Plus, Trump "patriots" physically destroyed the U.S. Capitol and injuries over 150 police officers. Merrick Garland has everything he needs to indict and prosecute Donald Trump for organizing and implementing a conspiracy under the Act. I predict that Garland will follow Mueller's path and give Trump a prosecutorial pass, as well. Every time I see Garland on TV, he is crying. His tears may be sincere, but they only telegraph weakness to men like Donald Trump. My Original November 17, 2020 Article on Trump's Coup D'etat My original November 17, 2020 article reporting Trump's planned coup d'etat is reprinted below. Our news sources in Washington and around the nation are incredibly good: The plot to overthrow the duly elected government of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris began in earnest on Monday, November 9, 2020. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper refused to participate in the coup d’état and was promptly fired that day by defeated incumbent president Donald J. Trump. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) bought into the plot and gave a speech on the Senate Floor on November 9th signaling his buy-in. Attorney General William Barr bought into the plot immediately after the November 3rd election. On November 9th, Barr sent a memo to all of his 94 U.S. Attorneys and FBI agents ordering them to investigate voter fraud in connection with the November 3rd presidential election, even though the Trump Campaign has failed to produce any credible evidence of voter fraud in any of the lawsuits it has filed since the election. The chief of the Department of Justice’s election crimes division, Richard Pilger, abruptly resigned on November 9th over the issuance of Barr’s memo, which marks the first time in 40 years that the Department has initiated criminal investigations into election activities without any proof of illegal criminal conduct. The last time this scenario occurred, the Department was targeting black voters in Southern states for voter harassment and voter suppression. Mike Pence is silent. He reportedly is scared to death about his involvement in Trump’s coup d’état. The U.S. Supreme Court is packed 5-4 in Trump’s favor. Five of the High Court’s six conservatives are ideological clones of Donald Trump. Amy Coney Barrett, the Court’s newest Justice, is not a Trump clone. Barrett’s independence is anchored in her personal and professional integrity, which is beyond reproach. Trump has also appointed nearly 200 other judges to federal appeals and trial courts around the nation. With these appointments, Trump has saturated the federal judiciary with political hacks who, for the most part, received lifetime appointments to the federal bench based upon their ability to kiss Trump’s derriere. The Acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, will coordinate with Barr on a plan to use the military and federal agents to maintain “law and order” during and after the coup d’etat. Trump has already alluded to a nationwide military presence to distribute new COVID-19 vaccines. Now, the military will add a “law and order” function, as well. Detention centers at U. S. military bases across the country are ready to house Americans who violently resist the coup. Federal prosecutors will target swing states like Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia for Barr’s voter fraud criminal investigations. The Grand Jury Secrecy Act provides a cloak of secrecy for federal prosecutors to do their dirty deeds behind closed doors and beyond the reach of judiciary scrutiny. These probes are fishing expeditions that target people and Democratic Party G-O-T-V organizations rather than crimes. Unsupervised and politically motivated federal prosecutors can “twist” any lawful political activity into “voter fraud”. Prosecutors do not have to nullify Joe Biden’s 5 million vote lead over Donald Trump. They only have to invalidate a sufficient number of votes in the swing states to take away Biden’s lead in these states. This will make Trump the putative Electoral College winner. The federal grand jury probes will also have the operative effect of stopping Republican secretaries of state in swing states from certifying the final vote tabulation by the deadlines for certification. Furthermore, they will stop the Federal Election Commission from certifying the presidential winner, as well. There will be no official winner declared for the 2020 presidential election while the grand jury probes continue. A federal grand jury probe can last from 18 to 24 months. The probes in the swing states will last for 24 months. With no declared winner of the presidential election on or before January 20th, 2021, Trump will suspend the U.S. Constitution’s provisions relating to the presidential election and declare martial law, citing the ongoing federal criminal probes. Of course, the Grand Jury Secrecy Act will provide Trump cover for not disclosing the nature and extent of the voter fraud under investigation. During this period, most of Trump’s U.S. Attorneys will remain in office beyond January 20, 2021 to implement the coup. It should be apparent to everyone by now that Donald Trump is NOT leaving the presidency on January 20, 2021. His is ushering his concept of “minority-rule” into the new paradigm of American politics. Trump and Barr hold all of the executive power in Washington. They also control all of the federal agencies needed to implement this coup. Joe Biden and a majority of voters in the November 3rd election hold none of the reigns of power in Washington. Trump and Barr also know most federal judges are nothing but judicial fluffers for prosecutors. They only show backbone when body-slamming black, brown and poor defendants in their courtrooms. Trump is a despot who is willing to do anything to stay in office. Trump has always placed his self-interest above the national interest. Is a second American Civil War on the horizon? Will Americans support the imposition of martial law by a president who lost the popular vote and Electoral college? Will Trump’s refusal to leave the White House result in the mutually assured destruction of America’s 233-year-old democracy? We shall see!

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on July 10, 2022 An Editorial Opinion If you are a woman who has been raped in one of the wrong states in America and you became pregnant from this act of violence, the Taliban faction of the Republican Party has mandated in 26 states that you must give birth to your rapist's child. You have no choice. Even if there is a risk that you might die while bringing your rapist's baby into the world, it does not matter. You are a dispensable vessel for forced childbirth. If your rapist is caught, he might be criminally charged with one of the many categories and degrees of sexual assaults, tried in a court proceeding, convicted, and sentenced from 5 to 7 years in prison for raping you. Your rapist might get probation if he is a privileged white male college student or a "pillar" of white society. If your rapist is your estranged husband, or a member of a super-wealthy family, or a popular athlete, entertainer, and/or actor, or a well-known political figure, he likely will escape criminal charges. Instead, you will become the victim of a well-coordinated campaign of "victim shaming." If you abort your rapist's fetus in one of the Taliban controlled "Red states," you may be charged with murder, tried in court, convicted, and sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for having this medically induced or surgical procedure, even if it is necessary to save your life. Your doctor will likely be charged with murder, as well. This is NOT a bad dream, or a horror movie. This is the sad reality of life in Taliban-controlled "Red states." The Taliban faction of the Republican Party owns and controls your body, as a woman. Republican Taliban leaders find inspiration for their harsh treatment of women (and people of color) in the Holy Bible. After all, most of them are white Southern Baptists, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians. These Christian zealots often cite Ephesians 5:22-24 for spiritual guidance. This Biblical passage commands: "For wives ... submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything." For more than two hundred years in America, this Judeo-Christian Biblical passage, which was written by the apostle Paul (a Roman citizen), provided the underpinnings for state laws that authorized white married men in America to beat and rape their wives. This is a tradition the colonists brought from Europe where women shared the same status as animals. Taliban leaders in Afghanistan find their inspiration in the Holy Koran for subjugating women in all aspects of their society. They, too, have the legal right to rape and beat their wives. They, too, force the birth of children whose mothers are rape victims. Sometimes, they even kill the woman for supposedly bringing dishonor on the family's name. Neither the Bible, nor the Koran, have passages that espouse the birth of a child who was conceived during an act of rape or incest. Jesus certainly did not opine on this subject. The five U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted in June to overturn Roe v. Wade are proud members of the Taliban faction of the Republican Party. All of them profess to be Christians. Three of them -- Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh --use Christianity as a cloak for white male privilege. These three men have never shown any respect for the rights of women under federal statutes or constitutional provisions. None of them has ever advocated for equal rights for women. All three men were elevated to the Supreme Court solely because the Taliban faction of the National Republican Party was assured that these minions would carry out their instructions to blow up Roe v. Wade, which they did. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic, is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This explains why Catholic theology, and not legal precedence, dictated her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Immediately after the Supreme Court's decision in the case, the Vatican expressed great pleasure with Barrett's vote. Like Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, the Vatican has historically subjugated women in the Catholic church around the world. This religious organization, which is best known today for unrelenting clergy sex abuse of young children, has been male-dominated for nearly two thousand years. Like the ruling Ayatollahs in Iran, Mullahs and Clerics in Iraq, and Taliban in Afghanistan, Justice Barrett's vote in Roe v. Wade was theocracy at work. As opposed to wearing an explosive device under a burka, Barrett pushes anti-women Taliban ideas in a black robe. When Barrett works to advance Republican Taliban ideas in America, the detonation from her ideological votes on the bench are just as harmful to women as the detonated suicide vests worn by her female counterparts in Afghanistan. We do not know how many thousands of desperate American women will die from suicides, illegal abortions, and forced childbirths as a result of Barrett's vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas is hopelessly trapped in the Biblical passage in Ephesians 6:5-6: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you." Thomas lives and thrives in a permanent state of mental and psychological slavery. He is constantly seeking new and creative ways to please his white slave masters. The constitution to which Thomas accords great deference was written by 55 white men who viewed his enslaved ancestors and him as "chattel property." Thomas would have been tortured, maimed, and dismembered for trying to have an intimate sexual relationship with the white woman who eventually became his wife. In fact, the interracial marriage between Thomas and his wife Virginia was banned by state laws until a forward-looking U.S. Supreme Court struck them down in 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia. The emerging Taliban brand of "Christianity" practiced by Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Thomas is dangerous for all Americans. This is a modern-day version of the "Christianity" that propped up the millions of architects and proponents of racial segregation and "massive resistance" to racial desegregation in the Deep South from 1879 to 1980. In the 1980s, they also killed the Equal Rights Amendment for women. These "Christians" are back, and they are dangerous!

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on June 26, 2022 An Editorial Opinion On Friday, June 24, 2022, America took a giant step toward Taliban rule in America. This was the day the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that gave American women the right to an abortion. It also marks the first time in history that the Supreme Court has taken away an established constitutional right from a protected group of Americans. The victims of Friday's Taliban attack are American women. For the first time in nearly 50 years, women in the U.S. have less constitutionally-protected rights than their mothers and grandmothers enjoyed. Once again, American women and their bodies are the "property" of misogynistic men, many of whom are supported in their subjugation of women by subservient females accomplices. For reasons I do not understand, these female accomplices seem to enjoy their status as "doormats' at the entryway of inequality for women. Women Had No Rights Under the 1787 Constitution In 1787, the U.S. constitution was written by 55 white men and ratified by white male voters in the thirteen original states. Women were the "property" of white men when the constitution was written. At the time, white male dominance in America was strictly enforced through: (a) a husband's right to chastise (or beat) and rape his wife, (b) laws prohibiting a woman from owning real and/or personal property in her own name (including cash), (c) the wholesale disenfranchisement of women in the political arena, and (d) severe limitations on educational opportunities for women. At no time since the constitution was ratified in 1787 have American women enjoyed the protection of an Equal Rights Amendment. All efforts to ratify the only Equal Rights Amendment for women that passed in Congress have failed. American women only gained the right to vote in 1920 with the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. America's long, sustained, and unrelenting subjugation of women, from the cradle to the grave, is documented in my May 5, 2022 article titled, "Roe v. Wade is Gone; Women are 'Property' Once Again." Today, American women have no constitutional right to an abortion, thanks to concerted domestic Taliban activities conducted by: (a) the "Gang of Five" justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, (b) former President Donald J. Trump, (c) National Republican Party leaders in Washington, (d) local, state, and federal elected Republican officials across America, and (e) the complicity of women who enable America's domestic Taliban rulers. The "Gang of Five" With Friday's ruling, the "Gang of Five" (i.e., Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret) fully embraced Donald Trump's condescending view of women when Trump bragged that he could grab women by the "pussy" anytime he wanted. Trump meant what he said. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court controls what a woman can and cannot do with her "pussy" when she is pregnant and desires an abortion. During his term in office from January 2017 to January 2021, Trump packed the Supreme Court with three Taliban-like zealots -- Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett -- who hoodwinked Americans with their prestigious Ivy League academic credentials. They joined Samuel Alito, a longtime woman-hater and sophisticated racist on the Court and Clarence Thomas, America's premier "Uncle Tom." This "Gang of Five" is a domestic version of a Taliban cell. Its base of operations is the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, this Taliban cell used sheer political muscle to blow-up Roe v. Wade. Before long, this "Gang of Five" will clear the way for Republican-controlled states to resurrect a husband's right to rape and beat his wife. These rights were widely exercised by married men in America and were completely legal under state law for hundreds of years. As nominees to vacancies on the Supreme Court, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied their way onto the Court. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) affirmed on Friday that these two Taliban members lied to them about respecting and preserving Rove v. Wade as established law. This lie duped both Senators into supporting their nominations, thereby clearing the way for them to take their seats on the Supreme Court. We now know that Justice Amy Coney Barrett is to American women what Justice Clarence Thomas is to African-Americans -- a cultural enslaver of women (and minorities) for the purpose of redeeming and preserving white male privilege in America. Like her counterparts in Afghanistan, Barrett's vote to overturn Roe v. Wade was rooted in her strict adherence to her personal religious beliefs, rather than any respect she had for judicial precedence. Barrett and Thomas should be proud of themselves. They have succeeded in ruining their family names for eternity and in joining Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the Supreme Court's Hall of Shame. Taney wrote the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision holding that blacks in America, whether freed or enslaved, had no rights that white men were bound to respect. The Taliban cell on the Supreme Court is committed to forcefully shoving Taliban rule down the throats of a majority of Americans the same way the Taliban rules in Afghanistan. Friday's Court ruling was a hard gut-punch to American women that was written by Sam Alito, a lifelong misogynist. Alito wanted to show the world in grand fashion that white men still rule America and dominate its women with an iron fist. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Taliban cell on the Supreme Court is now hunting down the person who leaked a draft of Alito's opinion in May. Hopefully, they will not be successful in their effort to capture, torture, and destroy this leaker. Justice Thomas, who has been a lifelong affirmative action hustler (for himself only), made it clear in his concurring opinion that contraception devices, the "morning after pill," and same-sex marriage are also on the Taliban's chopping block, as well. Thomas' list of Taliban targets come less than a week after the Texas Republican Party adopted a platform last weekend that declared homosexuality an "abnormal lifestyle choice" and opposed "all efforts to validate transgender identity." The Texas Republican Party, which is a sanctuary for domestic Taliban activities, also called for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act was enacted to prevent discrimination against black voters. In 2013, Thomas was a member of a different "Gang of Five" on the Supreme Court that gutted the Act. In January 2022, Republicans in Congress killed voting rights legislation that was designed to restore vitality to the Act. Preparing for the Future It is clear that women in America can no longer depend upon the U.S. Supreme Court, or Congress, or the presidency to protect them, their bodies, or their basic constitutional and human rights. What is more, President Joe Biden is too politically weak and mentally diminished to provide the kind of strong leadership and protection that Americans who are not privileged white males need and deserve. Vice President Kamala Harris is not an effective political asset in the fight against America's rising Taliban dominance. Ms. Harris has not demonstrated any degree of success in handling the major White House initiatives that were assigned to her by Joe Biden (e.g. new voting rights legislation, solving the crisis at our southern border, leading the nation's transition to electric powered vehicles, etc.). What is more, children in America have no advocate or protector in today's Republican Party. This is true whether they are white murder victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, or Mexican America murder victims at Robb Elementary School in Texas, or poor children of all races in America who desperately need adequate healthcare, decent housing, nutritional meals, daycare, and equal educational opportunities. America's Taliban has made it crystal clear that only "unborn children" have protected constitutional rights in the nation today. Children living "outside the womb" must fend for themselves. In the span of ten years, the U.S. Supreme Court has transformed itself from a respected national institution into a Republican-controlled domestic Taliban cell. Today, only 14% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court. The "Gang of Five" is so out of step with the views of a majority of Americans on the issues of abortion and gun safety legislation that access to the Supreme Court building has been walled off from the public for security reasons and the justices must have personal security guards for themselves and their families. Taliban rulers in Afghanistan must protect themselves in the same way. We Can and Must Defeat America's Domestic Taliban Cells It will take strong, aggressive political leadership in the White House and Congress, together with a massive voter turnout in November's election, to reverse the adverse effects of Friday's Taliban decree. Those of us who believe in democracy and the rule of law must make it clear to the Taliban's "Gang of Five" on the Supreme Court and the National Republican Party that Taliban rule has no place in American society. Today, the strongest and most capable pro-choice leader on the national political scene is Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan). She is fighting with vision, vigor, courage, and success against America's growing Taliban movement on (a) every initiative to suppress voting rights for women and minorities, (b) every concerted effort to take away a woman's right to control her body and her reproductive rights, and (c) every measure to eradicate the legal protections for LGBTQ citizens and their communities. Gov. Whitmer is young, gifted, highly intelligent, hard-working, and experienced in governing an ethnically and politically diverse population. She is committed to the fight for equal rights and social justice for every American who was intentionally left out of the 1787 version of the constitution. Gov. Whitmer is so effective in her fighting skills that "Trump patriots" recently plotted to kidnap and kill her. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice should launch an Immediate criminal investigation into Clarence Thomas and his reported pay-to-play scheme. The New York Times documented the fact that Thomas votes on the side of conservative advocacy groups (with cases pending before the Supreme Court) that hire his wife Ginni as a "consultant." Thomas has always been an obstacle to equal rights for African-Americans. Today, he is a clear and present danger to the health, safety, and welfare of America women. Additionally, Thomas' adherence to judicial ethics has been lacking for decades. Yet, the "Gang of Five" uses Thomas as its spokesman for taking credit for its successful Taliban attacks on American democracy and women rights. So that we are clear, I believe that a woman has an absolute constitutional right to (a) control her body and (b) determine her individual reproductive rights in consultation with her doctor. I will fight in the political arena with every breathe of life I have to make sure that we defeat Taliban strikes in America and restore the constitutional right to an abortion for American women. Working together, we must begin this national effort by defeating as many Taliban/Republican candidates for state and federal offices as we can in the November 2022 elections. We must not waste our time by trying to convert voters who support Taliban/Republican candidates. We must register and educate new voters as Independents and turn out many more voters than the Taliban. They must be soundly defeated, plain and simple. At this juncture, the side with the most to lose (white men) are more committed to Taliban rule than the side with the most to gain (everybody else). We must change this political paradigm, now.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on May 5, 2022 An Editorial Opinion According to a draft opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court that was leaked to Politico this week, five justices on the Court have agreed to overturn Roe v. Wade. This 1973 landmark case recognized a woman's right to an abortion. This Constitutional right has been affirmed by the Supreme Court in several subsequent rulings. The draft opinion is authored by Samuel Alito, a right-wing George W. Bush appointee to the Supreme Court. He leads a "Gang of Five" who banded together to get rid of Roe v. Wade. When the final Court ruling is issued, within the next month or so, in a case involving the state of Mississippi's recently passed restrictive abortion law, Roe v. Wade will be gone. Along with it will be the end of a woman's right to a legal abortion. For the first time in its modern history, the Supreme Court is dominated by far right-wing Republican Party hacks who have no respect for a woman or her body. Once again, the Court views women as "property" that is to be enjoyed by men, as they see fit. America and the Court entered this zone when presidential candidate Donald J. Trump bragged on a secret audio tape that men like him can "grab [women] by the pussy" whenever they want, and he subsequently won the presidency in 2016. Of the five justices who agreed to overturn Roe v. Wade , three are Trump appointees. All three of them assumed office with a political mission to end abortion rights in America. Women Came to America as the "Property" of White Men When the group of 55 men that Americans revere as the "Founding Fathers" wrote the United States Constitution in 1787, the only people who enjoyed the rights enunciated in the Constitution were white men. The Constitution was written by these 55 white men for the benefit of all white men. Native-Americans, who were the original Americans, had no rights under the Constitution. They were so despised that, by 1776, the Declaration of Independence denounced them as "merciless Indian savages." From the nation's beginning in 1612, African-American slaves had no rights under the Constitution because they were another form of "property." We could be bought and sold, insured as "property," and transferred to family members in wills and trusts. Slaveholders treated slaves just like horses, cattle, and other livestock. Many of the Founding Fathers Were Slaveowners and Misogynists In 1857, the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case held that African-Americans, whether freed or slaves, had no rights that white men were bound to respect. Women had no rights under the Constitution because they were considered "property" by misogynist white males, including many of the Founding Fathers. For almost one hundred years after the Constitution was passed by Congress and ratified by the states, American women were not allowed to own real estate in their own names. If they were married, their husbands had a legal right to rape and beat (or chastise) them. And, women did not have the right to vote. Women Are In Trouble Today The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1865 to outlaw most forms of legal slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 to afford blacks equal rights under the law. The Fifteenth Amendment was adopted in 1870 to guarantee blacks the right to vote. However, these Constitutional rights were rarely enforced. Even when they were enforced, it was only for a brief ten-year period of time. Slavery is still legal under the Thirteenth Amendment, as long as it is administered as punishment for a crime by state and federal authorities. America is the only country in the Western Hemisphere with legalized slavery embedded in its constitution. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted. Even then, their efforts to exercise this right was met with massive and sustained resistance from white men. Efforts to adopt an Equal Rights Amendment for women failed in the 1980s. While the legislative measure passed Congress, it was not ratified by the number of states needed to become law. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Congress attempted to elevate the legal status of African-Americans, women, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, and other ethnic minorities by passing various federal laws that were designed to guarantee them equal protection under our state and federal laws and greater access to voting rights. While these laws helped to improve the plight of these historically disadvantaged groups for the past 50 years, many white men across America never gave up on the political and legal fight to return the members of these groups to their original status of having no rights that white men are bound to respect. As we entered the 21st Century, the white men who dominate the National Republican Party, along with a large body of weak and subservient white women who are controlled by them, used their political strength to weaponize the United States Supreme Court for the purpose of subverting and undermining the Constitutional rights that all women have enjoyed in the modern era. The Samuel Alito-controlled Supreme Court gutted equal rights and voting rights for African-Americans with ease. By 2013, blacks had no voting rights that were capable of enforcement in federal courts, despite the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The same is true for their Fourteenth Amendment equal rights under the Constitution and laws of the land. What is more, Native-Americans lost the right to control Reservation Lands that were given to them with a treaty promise of sovereignty and self-governance. The only reason Native-Americans are living on reservations, in the first place, is because the U.S. Army and white vigilantes took by force nearly 1.5 billion acres of tribal lands from more than 500 Native-American tribes in America between 1830 and 1906. Women's Rights Are Doomed Today, women in America are the target of a planned return of their legal status to the one the Founding Father's codified in the original version of the U.S. Constitution. For the first time in 50 years, women will lose the Constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion that was recognized in Roe v. Wade. The Court's "Gang of Five" justices, led by Samuel Alito, is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade soon. Included in this "Gang of Five" with Samuel Alito are Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Clarence Thomas. Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh are partisan hacks and longtime beneficiaries of white male privilege. They are male chauvinists who obviously have no respect for women's rights. Based upon a February 27, 2022 article in the New York Times Magazine titled "The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas," we now know that Clarence Thomas' vote on the Supreme Court can be bought by any right-wing conservative advocacy group that pays his wife a healthy consulting fee. I discussed this "Pay-to Play" scheme in my April 7, 2022 article titled "Clarence Thomas: A 'Pay-to-Play' Scheme at the U.S. Supreme Court." Amy Coney Barrett, who is a staunch Catholic and who is the mother of five school-age biological children and two adopted Haitian children, appears to be the only justice who based her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade on religious ideology, rather than pure political dogma. This view would be fine if Justice Barrett were a member of a supreme court in a nation that is a theocracy like Iran, but she is not. Epilogue I am a pro-choice Independent political activist. However, I believe that a woman's right to choose an abortion rests solely within her private discretion. I despise the hypocrisy of male Republican leaders in Washington and in state legislatures who publicly rail against abortions on FOX News, but privately paid for this medical procedure for their young mistresses. The Supreme Court is re-entering a dark period in the Court's history that started with the Dred Scott case. It continued with Korematsu V. United States, where the Court approved, on a 6 to 3 vote, the round up and deportation of 70,000 American citizens of Japanese origin from their homes on the West Coast to concentration camps during World War II. In 1954, the U.S. government, under Republican president Dwight Eisenhower, rounded up 1.3 million Mexicans living in the United States in "Operation Wetback." Sixty percent of these people were American citizens who were living in the U.S. legally. They lost everything. The Supreme Court did nothing to protect these American citizens of color from this nightmare experience. Today, the Supreme Court's public approval rating stands at 40%. It is certain to drop further after the Court overturns Roe v. Wade. American women are in for a long period of suffering. The Republican Party is the Party of angry white men who want to make America white again, by any means necessary. The abolition of abortions rights is one of their tools to accomplish this goal. America's white population is declining. Whites will be a minority group by the 2030 or 2040 census. This Republican Party-led trampling of Constitutional rights for women and racial minorities will not end until the Republicans have firmly installed the legal apparatus for white "minority rule" in America. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. 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By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on June 5, 2022 An Editorial Opinion I have been a declared political independent since 2001. I have never taken campaign cash or accepted "get-out-the-vote" money from any candidate running for political office. I have supported Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who have run for various federal, state, and local offices. Between 2001 and 2010, I raised and contributed more than $1 million in campaign donations to support these political candidates. My support for a candidate cannot be bought. It must be earned. On March 11, 2020, I published an article titled, "The Joy of Being a Political Independent." The article describes why I cannot live and work on any political party's plantation. Both of the country's major Parties are deeply flawed in many respects. As such, I tend to look at the individual candidates themselves to see if they embody the qualities I seek in an elected official. I try to avoid political ass-kissers and mindless partisan cheerleaders. These charlatans, who represent 95% of all political candidates in America today, are mostly lazy, selfish, limited in their thinking abilities, and dangerous in their unguided thoughts. I am looking for the "One-Percenters" of national politics -- those who have demonstrated the skills, knowledge, abilities, courage, vision, and intellectual capacity to lead the nation in solving the growing list of problems facing ordinary Americans. Whenever I find them, I will support them with individual campaign contributions and donations from a new political action committee (PAC) that is being formed. The PAC will also finance nationwide voter registration drives and "get-out-the-vote" (GOTV) campaigns that target a growing national pool of potential Independent voters. Joe Biden Should Not Run for Re-Election in 2024 On March 29, 2020, I published an article titled, "Democrats Must Draft a New Presidential Nominee." In the article, I warned Democrats that they needed a presidential nominee other than Joe Biden. The Party ignored my advice and allowed the Bill/Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama loyalists to pick Joe Biden as the Party's 2020 nominee. In turn, Biden picked California freshman U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential running mate. Biden won the 2020 election only because President Donald Trump demonstrated his colossal incompetence during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans were also tired of Trump's non-stop daily drama, buffoonery in office, braggadocios conduct, constant chess-pounding, and megalomania. In 2018, Vice President Mike Pence, along with several White House staffers and cabinet members, believed that Trump was too "unstable" and "unfit" to continue serving as President. This group of plotters planned to remove Trump from office by invoking the disability clause of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Anonymous" alluded to this 25th Amendment vehicle for this Republican-led coup d'etat in his September 5, 2018 Op-Ed article published in the New York Times. This ill-fated plan failed only because then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost his nerve and backed out. I reported on the Pence-Sessions coup d'etat plot in a February 26, 2020 article titled, "Trump Has a 'Judas Iscariot' in His Inner Circle." Mike Pence was Trump's "Judas Iscariot." On January 6, 2021, Trump's diehard supporters in Washington called for Mike Pence to be hung. Trump now views Pence and Jeff Sessions as enemies. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. There was no massive fraud in the nationwide voting, as alleged by Trump and his minions in over 60 court cases that he lost. In many of these cases, Trump-appointed federal judges ruled against him. Even Clarence Thomas, the most right-wing justice on the Supreme Court, declined to hear Trump's election challenge. Thomas is well-known in Washington for French-kissing the smelly political asses of top Republicans. Why the Biden/Harris Team Must Go The qualities that made Joe Biden an unattractive presidential candidate in 2020 are present today. Biden is probably a great guy to have a beer with while listening to old war stories about his glory days in the U.S. Senate. However, Biden does not embody the presidential leadership qualities Americans need today. The Biden thrill is gone. Additionally, Biden is too old, slow, and weak to lead America in a fast-paced, rapidly changing world. What is worse, Biden is suffering from senility, which worsens with the passage of time. Biden's approval rating is underwater in 40 states. Here are some of the reasons why: Inflation is out of control. The nation is on the verge of a recession. America is out of baby formula. Gas prices are skyrocketing. No practical, non-racist solution to the migration crisis at America's southern border has been offered by the Biden administration. Biden's troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was an unmitigated disaster. Biden's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine was too little, too late. New voting rights protection legislation sank like the Titanic in 2022. Long-established constitutional rights of women are being ripped from them without a real presidential fight. Gun reform is beyond Biden's political reach. Biden still has "burrowed-in" Donald Trump political appointees running important government agencies. The list of presidential leadership failures goes on and on. Kamala Harris is NOT the Answer in 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris is NOT the answer for Democrats in 2024. Harris has failed to deliver on every initiative Biden entrusted to her. She failed to deliver the votes necessary to pass Biden's new voting rights legislation. She has shown no ability to lead the Biden administration's efforts to solve the crisis at our southern border. The same is true for Biden's clean energy initiatives. Harris simply does not understand the world of clean energy or electric vehicles beyond what she reads from the teleprompter during White House press conferences. If Kamala Harris has an area of problem-solving expertise, I have not seen it. Today, she functions more like a glorified Biden cheerleader. While Harris' intellectual capacity is probably higher than former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's, her ability to perform as a strong leader in the office has often been embarrassing and frustrating. The Republican Party Offers More Trumpism in 2024 It is clear today that the Republican Party will be offering more Trumpism in 2024. The former president has a death-grip on the Party. Nearly every Republican running for office in America sounds like a clone of Donald Trump. The Republican Party is minting political candidates who: (a) have no respect for the constitutional rights of women, (b) do not care one iota about the health, safety, and lives of school children beyond their family members, (c) will fight to protect fetuses in the womb, while refusing to combat rising infant mortality among new born babies and young infants by providing adequate medical care to them, (d) zealously guard the financial interests of the Wall Street "One Percenters," while ignoring the diminishing financial security for "Main Street," (e) are willing to overthrow a duly elected government in order to install "white minority rule," and (f) will lie about everything, including the nature and scope of a January 6, 2021 Insurrection at the National Capitol that was captured on hours of videotape. Sadly, the Republican Party has morphed into a modern-day, national version of the Old South's "White Citizens Council" that dominated politics in Old Confederate states during the civil rights era of the 1960s. The presence of U.S. Senators of color like Tim Scott (S. Carolina), Ted Cruz (Texas), and Marco Rubio (Florida) in the Party does not fumigate the insidious racism that has infected the Party's political direction, spirit, and soul. Furthermore, any political party that places the financial interests of gun manufacturers over the lives and safety of school children is unfit to govern. Epilogue As an Independent voter activist, I have been working very hard during the last three years to prepare for the 2024 presidential election. In a February 27, 2022 article titled, "Independent Voters Must Save American Democracy in 2024," I set forth a common sense political agenda that most Independent voters nationwide seem to agree upon. My friends and I will be forming a Super-PAC for Independent voters in time for the 2024 presidential elections. Right now, we already have financial commitments to fund the PAC up to $25 million. We will try to increase the PAC's war chest to $50 million between now and the 2024 elections. We will not accept campaign donations from candidates or political parties. From this $25 to $50 million amount, the PAC will support voter registration and GOTV activities in six swing states. We will also allocate $20 to $40 million for political ads that support the PAC's preferred presidential candidate. We are targeting Americans of color, women who value their constitutional rights, young Americans between 18 and 35 years of age, and Independent voters across America as the recipients of our voter education messaging and political agenda. If there is a "rising star" in the Democratic or Republican Party who is running for president and who agrees to advance and protect the articulated political agenda of Independent voters, we may allocate $2 to $4 million to benefit this candidate's campaign during the primary election races. This amount would be in addition to the $20 to $40 million the Super-PAC plans to spend in the November 2024 general election. However, the "rising star" candidate must demonstrate to our PAC that his/her campaign has national viability and that he/she has personal electability. We will not be financing the raw political ego or naked personal ambition of a presidential candidate who is un-electable. Our PAC prefers a presidential candidate in his/her 40s or 50s. It would be great if the candidate of choice for Independent voters is a woman or person of color. We have little interest in supporting and electing another old, tired, cranky, longtime beneficiary of "white male privilege" as the next president of the United States.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on June 2, 2022 An Editorial Opinion Greg Locke is an angry white man who masquerades as a "Christian" preacher. The church Locke founded on November 5, 2006 was called "Global Vision Baptist Church" in Mount Juliet, Tennessee (USA), which is just outside of Nashville. Today, Locke's church is called "Global Vision Bible Church." Unlike traditional churches, Locke runs "Global Vision Bible Church" without the oversight of congregational votes, or a board of deacons, or a board of trustees. Despite the lack of a traditional church governance structure and pastoral accountability to the church's congregation, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Locke's church tax exempt status. Locke has an online following of 2.2 million on his Facebook page. In September 2021, Locke was permanently banned from Twitter for reasons that will become self-evident as you read this article. Jesus Warned Christians About "False Prophets" In Matthew 24:11, Jesus Christ warned Christians about false prophets. "And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people," said Jesus. Greg Locke appears to be one of them. Based upon his words and deeds, Locke is a modern-day apostle of hatred. Locke's rants and actions define a depraved man who hates political views that differ from his own. He also hates abused women, including those in his family. Locke's words and actions attest to the fact that the hatred that consumed him as a wayward teenager carried forward to shape his present-day views and dictate his unchristian-like actions. In a video sermon on May 15, 2022, Greg Locke gave his Tennessee congregation this mindless tirade in lieu of a sermon: "If you vote Democrat, I don't even want you around this church. You can get out. You can get out, you demon. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don't care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democratic in this nation ... You cannot be a Democrat and a Christian. You cannot. Somebody say, 'Amen.' The rest of you get out! Get out!" What is worse, Greg Locke recently led his church in a book burning celebration of "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" series books, as well as merchandise featuring animated Disney cartoon characters. Book burning ceremonies is a favorite pastime of hateful, demented people. Locke has not commented on the Bible's graphic violence against innocent men, women and children, or its depiction of soldiers gang-raping women, or its account of female bodies being mutilated, or its description of male genitalia and ejaculation, as cited in specific Biblical passages in our May 12, 2022 article titled, "Is the Bible to Graphic for Children Under 18?" Greg Locke also attended the January 6, 2021 Insurrection on the steps of the National Capitol. The day before the Insurrection, Locke appeared at a pro-Trump rally where he spewed hatred in one of the most violent prayers ever given in the name of Christianity. Reflecting on his "Insurrection" prayer, Locke said: "Everyone wanna talk about the Insurrection? Mmmm. Let me tell you something: You ain't seen the Insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you'll find out what an Insurrection is." Greg Locke has also "blessed" the violent right-wing "Proud Boys" domestic terrorist group from his church's pulpit. According to Locke, the group provides him "security." Locke's Trashy Lifestyle Mirrors a "Jerry Springer" TV Show Greg Locke says there are two kinds of people in the church -- "those being used by God and those who are using God." Clearly, Locke falls in the latter group. Locke was born on May 18, 1976 in Donelson, Tennessee. During his teenage years, Locke was in and out of state juvenile facilities. He was arrested six times for various offenses and placed on probation five times. Locke claims that he became a Christian in April 1992, about ten days after he first landed in the juvenile facility. Locke does not explain how and why he landed in prison five more times after he became a "Christian." Locke described his hatred for his stepfather this way: " My father was in the Tennessee State Penitentiary for about ten years, and I hated my stepdad." Locke expressed no hatred for his "convict" father, whose absence at home clearly contributed to his son's criminal lifestyle. Locke has expressed no "Honor thy father and mother" praise for his mother, who divorced his father. As expected, Greg Locke's hatred is not limited to Democrats, or his stepdad, or his mother. He has also spewed hateful rants about his first wife, Melissa. Greg and Melissa Locke got divorced in 2018, with Melissa filing for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences." Afterwards, Greg Locke trashed Melissa in the media by claiming the "[s]he's been in and out of mental health facilities, but that is not where she is right now. She is at a place that helps ladies get on their feet again." Before the ink was dry on the couple's divorce papers, Locke fell in love with his administrative assistant at the church, Taisha (Tai Cowan McGee), and married her in 2018. The timing of Pastor Locke's starburst "insider" church romance with Taisha and relatively quiet marriage to her raises questions that only Melissa, Taisha, and Locke can answer. Locke used his remarriage press statement to trash Melissa, again. "I'm legally remarried, and I'm legally divorced," Locke said. "I'm not gonna live crazy and single for the rest of my life and just live in misery because my ex-wife decided to burn my life to the ground publicly with a bunch of lies about abuse and stuff which my kids were mortified by." Locke claims he earned a Master's Degree in Revival History from the Baptist Theological School in New England and a Graduate of Theology degree from Ambassador Baptist College. It is unclear where he obtained his undergraduate degree, if he has one. Epilogue There is no Biblical support for the brand of hatred that Greg Locke routinely spews in his church's pulpit. His prominent place in the white evangelical church cheapens the public's respect for white Evangelical Christians. Locke's church appears to be little more than a Biblical cover for a slick financial hustle of sympathetic congregational members by a self-professed serial criminal offender. There are no traditional checks and balances on his church's ministerial mission, daily operations, or finances. By his own words and deeds, Locke's ministerial mission has drifted away from Christianity, as defined by Jesus in the New Testament's Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and into the realm of domestic terrorism, extremism, and Christian Nationalism, as defined by the Book of Greg Locke. Locke's violent rhetoric is what Southern Baptist preachers spewed throughout the 20th century to justify the thousands of lynchings of innocent black men and women that were carried out by church members on Sunday afternoons before they returned for evening worship services. Greg Locke and his brand of evangelical hatred constitute a clear and present danger to the domestic security of the United States. Locke does not preach a universal love for mankind, as Jesus did. Locke does not love his enemies, as Jesus did. Locke does not strive to enlighten and unite humanity, as Jesus did. Instead, Locke uses God as a prop to mask his unadulterated hatred of Americans whose politics differ from his own. In our view, Greg Locke is one of the many "false prophets" Jesus warned us about in Matthew 24:11. In time, Locke will join his kindred spirits in the dustbin of history. This is where all despots and apostles of hatred eventually wind up.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on May 22, 2022 Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Katie Britt has found a political paramour in perennial Alabama "dirty tricks" operative Joe Perkins. Britt, a Republican, and Perkins, a Democrat, have developed a closet political relationship that is satisfying their mutual lust for power and influence. The clandestine nature of the secret Katie Britt-Joe Perkins political union is designed to: (a) hoodwink unsuspecting Republican voters in Alabama, (b) surreptitiously extend retiring Alabama U.S. Senator Richard Shelby's shelf-life via a surrogate political puppet arrangement with Britt, and (c) evade detection by the Federal Election Commission ("FEC"). Earlier this month, Joe Perkins' 39-year-old daughter, Taylor Lea Perkins, claimed that her famous father subjected her to ten years of serial acts of incest when she was a young child. Joe Perkins has not publicly commented on Ms. Perkins' allegations of incest against him. Perkins and his political consulting firm, Matrix, LLC, are currently under state and federal investigations in Florida in connection with laundered contributions to ghost political candidates in various state legislative races and other political shenanigans. Perkins' former CEO, Jeff Pitts, is suing him in a Florida state court on various counts of extortion, racketeering, and abuse of the legal process. Perkins is also suing Pitts in an Alabama state court on various tort claims relating to alleged business opportunities for Matrix. Perkins is a Known Federal Election Lawbreaker In 1992, Perkins confessed in writing to breaking federal campaign financing laws. Perkins also signed a Conciliation Agreement with the FEC in which he pledged to forego political consulting work in future federal elections. Perkins' confession occurred while he was under an FEC investigation for funneling money from his consulting business into the 1985 Congressional campaign of Roy Johnson, who is his longtime friend and a convicted felon. Perkins devised a scheme to give phony bonuses to several of his employees who, in turn, made same-day contributions to Johnson's campaign in their individual names and for the same amount as their bonus. Perkins escaped a criminal prosecution for this illegal campaign financing scheme only because the applicable statute of limitations had run out on the unlawful campaign contributions before the U.S. Department of Justice was in a position to indict him for his role in the scheme. However, Perkins and the employees who participated in the illegal scheme were fined for their violations of federal election laws. Joe Perkins is Doing It Again Despite the FEC's permanent ban on Perkins' participation in federal elections, Perkins and Matrix are at it again. This time, Perkins is providing professional services to the Katie Britt campaign that have not been disclosed on Britt's campaign financing disclosure forms. Perkins' services include: (a) providing the campaign advice on overall strategy, (b) furnishing the campaign opposition research on Britt's opponents, (c) planting positive stories about Britt and negative stories about her opponents in captive media outlets like the Alabama Political Reporter and Yellowhammer News, and (d) promoting Britt's campaign on various social media platforms. These services are the same ones Perkins' political clients pay him to provide. Perkins is an expert at using "dirty tricks" to promote or undermine political campaigns. He has unlimited access to Alabama Power Company's financial coffers, without invoicing. Perkins often uses this vast reservoir of ratepayer money to fund his "dirty tricks" operations -- all with the blessing of Mark Crosswhite, Alabama Power's CEO. Perkins has used false or misleading media messaging to attack Britt's opponents. He has also utilized staff personnel from Matrix to conduct opposition research and assist in planting negative news stories. Perkins pays his staff for these services, clearly making his work an act of providing "things of value" to the Britt campaign. Perkins appears to have also planted a multitude of stories in The Alabama Political Reporter. Perkins provides this blog with essential, ongoing funding, in yet another attempt to hide his contributions to the Britt campaign. The Alabama Political Reporter has published at least 28 articles that are either supportive of Britt and/or critical of her opponents. At least 14 of these articles are clearly supportive of Britt. None of them are critical of her. Another 14 articles are critical of Britt's opponents, Mike Durant and Mo Brooks. None of the articles are supportive of Durant or Brooks. A large number of these articles originated on Perkins' personal Facebook page. In 2022, Yellowhammer News, which depends on Alabama Power Company as a financial lifeline, ranked Joe Perkins Number 13 on its annual listing of power and influence players in Alabama. Britt Has Failed to Disclose Perkins' Professional Services To date, the Britt campaign has failed to disclose the beneficial services that Joe Perkins and Matrix have rendered to it. Federal election laws require the Britt campaign to disclose these services as either paid vendor services or as "in-kind" professional services contributed by Perkins/Matrix to the Britt campaign. The Britt campaign's failure to report Joe Perkins' "dirty tricks" services for its benefit appears to be a clear violation of federal election laws. What is more, it is unclear whether the Britt campaign sought and received permission from the FEC to accept the consulting services of this confessed federal election lawbreaker and permanently banned political consultant. One of Perkins' favored "dirty tricks" entails a political money laundering scheme in which he provides professional services to a preferred political candidate like Katie Britt, but the payment for these services comes from a third-party like Alabama Power. This nefarious scheme may be in progress with the Britt campaign. Perkins' long personal relationship with U.S. Senator Richard Shelby and Scott Coogler, the Chief U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, has emboldened him to continue plowing his "dirty tricks" trade in federal elections, despite his 1992 written commitment to the FEC that he would not engage in political consulting activities in the future. Perkins is also a "hunting buddy" of Shelby and Coogler. He has also provided political consulting services to Shelby on a regular basis. Katie Britt is Shelby's former chief of staff, and Shelby views himself as her political "Godfather." Like former President Bill Clinton, Richard Shelby has lived his entire adult working life on the modest salary he earned as a public official. Yet, Shelby is leaving office in January of 2023 as one of the richest men in U.S. Senate history. Like Bill Clinton, Richard Shelby has never publicly explained how he could legitimately amass the super-wealth needed to become a bona fide member of America's privileged class of "One Percenters" from a life-long government-paid salary. Epilogue Political insiders acknowledge that Katie Britt is the handpicked "establishment" candidate in Alabama's U.S. Senate race. She had to run as a Republican candidate to have a realistic chance at winning the race in this "Red State." Britt is owned "lock, stock, and barrel" by Joe Perkins, Richard Shelby, Alabama Power Company, the Drummond Company, Regions Bank, and other members of the old-guard political oligarchy that runs Alabama. Katie Britt is not worried about any law enforcement probes of her Senatorial campaign in Alabama because Senator Richard Shelby handpicked all three of the U.S. Attorneys in the state. None of them will make a move to enforce federal campaign financing laws against a Shelby-backed political puppet who is the beneficiary of Joe Perkins' secret "dirty tricks." This is particularly true in the Northern District of Alabama where Scott Coogler is Chief Judge and Lloyd Peeples is the office's "Criminal Chief." Peeples is a failed pizza restaurant operator who has lived off of federal taxpayer dollars since 2017, thanks to Richard Shelby's political largesse. Peeples is the "gatekeeper" who protects the oligarchy's political "untouchables" from federal criminal prosecutions in the Northern District of Alabama. The Katie Britt campaign believes it is acceptable in Alabama to use the political services of a confessed federal election lawbreaker like Joe Perkins. The campaign apparently believes that the stain on Joe Perkins name and brand will not matter to Republican voters in Alabama. Only time will tell whether the Katie Britt campaign is right in this regard. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. Please click on these links to follow Donald Watkins: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

By Cara McClure | Executive Director of Faith & Works This is a guest opinion column If Alabama were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Why is that? Is it just? Does it reflect the values of the people that live here? Here in Birmingham we are gearing up for some elections that will shape the future of our criminal legal system, and we should all take the time to get clear about what values we want to see reflected in that system. Two years ago I started an organization called Faith and Works. We are a small, non-profit, social justice organization and our mission is to do whatever we can to enhance the lives of those in our community who are underserved and underrepresented. So, when a judicial election comes around, we know it’s time to pay attention. Right now, around the country, our criminal legal system faces a crisis of legitimacy, given that over a thousand people were killed by law enforcement last year, and that disproportionately the people killed are Black. Beyond this crisis of confidence, in which many Americans have lost faith in the system, there are also big questions about fairness inside our judicial system. To deal with this, in addition to racial diversity, and gender diversity, our courts need a diversity of professional experience for them to be representative of the people they serve. In 2014, Alliance for Justice released a report which found that an overwhelming number of Judges and nominees to the courts were prosecutors and not criminal defense attorneys. The 6th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees every criminal defendant the right to an attorney. The presumption of innocence, and the right to have effective counsel are core principles of fairness in our legal system. The people that serve in that role have a first hand look at our legal system, but too often, working as a defense attorney doesn’t lead to career advancement for some of our fiercest defenders. This matters, and here’s why. When a judge sitting on the bench rules that a witness is credible, or whether members of law enforcement acted “reasonably,” they bring their perspective and experience to bear. When our cities are finally beginning to grapple with the terrible toll of excessive policing, unjust overcriminalization, and mass incarceration it matters that the judges on the courts have a range of perspectives. Defense attorneys are deeply familiar with the disparities in sentencing and arrests. They have to navigate these challenges every day as they support their clients, and witness how they are treated by the judicial system. This is powerful knowledge and expertise. They understand the danger, inhumanity and ineffectiveness of using incarceration as a solution for addressing drug use, mental health needs, and poverty in our communities. Jefferson County has never had a public defender - a full time public defender in an institutional office - serve as a judge on the circuit bench. Could this be one reason our incarceration rate is so high? Often, we valorize prosecutors for their role in putting away “bad guys.” Instead of celebrating those public defenders who keep innocent people free, and who are vital counterpoints to overcriminalization in our legal system, we often measure them by their least sympathetic clients. This is not only unfair, it also perpetuates a false story about what it means to be “tough on crime,” one of the most common dog whistles of our day. Instead, public defenders are often the only line of defense against prosecutorial misconduct, which is one of the leading reasons for wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project. Good public defenders guard our legal system against this kind of harm. They are key to ensuring that people receive due process, and a fair trial -- hallmarks of a just legal system. This election season we have two public defenders running for judicial seats, Tiara Hudson and Paul Rand. As a community member, and community organizer, I know very well that the relationship between public defenders and organizers can be a real site for collaboration. They have partnered with Faith and Works’ Community Bail Fund to ensure that people are not held and incarcerated for no reason other than poverty. Now is the time to face the strengths and the weaknesses of our criminal legal system, and to work to ensure that our representatives on the courts understand the long history of injustice in our system and work to find just alternatives in service of a more perfect judiciary, and ultimately a more perfect union. Cara McClure is executive director of Faith & Works, a small non-profit social justice organization The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the website owner. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author . DonaldWatkins.com enthusiastically welcomes the viewpoints of all citizens and will gladly reprint articles at the owner's request.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on April 24, 2022 As Alabamians, we all owe Kevin B. Forbes, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos (CDLU), a great debt of gratitude. CDLU is a nationally recognized consumer healthcare advocacy group that exposed and helped to bring to an end hospital price gouging of uninsured patients. More recently, Mr. Forbes and CDLU have turned their attention to cleaning up engrained corruption in the U.S. Attorney's office and U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, which is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama (USA). Mr. Forbes has authored nine investigative reports, spurred three Congressional hearings, and worked coast to coast to improve healthcare for all. His written complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice have succeeded in shining a much-needed spotlight on out-of-control public corruption in the Northern District's "rigged" criminal justice system. This time, criminal investigators in Washington, Georgia, and Florida are moving to curb it. Born and raised in California, Forbes once taught English as a second language to working Latino students at a post-Secondary vocational school near Watts, South Los Angeles, California. As the son of a Latino immigrant, Mr. Forbes is fluent in Spanish. He has lived in Chile and Mexico. Forbes Exposed Public Corruption in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama On December 4, 2019, Forbes and CDLU launched a three-year long fight in Washington against public corruption in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama. His unrelenting anti-corruption campaign is now bearing fruit that will benefit Alabamians and the nation for decades to come. As a direct result of Mr. Forbes' and CDLU's courageous anti-corruption campaign, we have seen the following stunning turn of events that threatens to jail Alabama's most powerful political, business, and political figures: (1) The abrupt midnight resignation of U.S. Attorney Jay Town in 2020 after photographs taken in 2017 showed an ethically compromised Town chugging down cocktails with Alabama Power Company CEO Mark Crosswhite during the height of his office's criminal investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption that was linked directly to Alabama Power, former state Rep. Oliver Robinson (D-Birmingham), the Drummond Company, and the law firm of Balch & Bingham. The goal of the bribery scheme was to defeat an initiative by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add a predominantly black neighborhood in North Birmingham as a Superfund clean-up site. Alabama Power provided $30,000 of the money that was used to bribe Rep. Robinson. At least 21 Balch attorneys played some part in the bribery scheme, as well. Yet, neither Alabama Power, nor Crosswhite, nor none of Balch's 21 participating attorneys, nor Drummond Company CEO Mike Tracy was charged in the bribery scheme. Over the objection of honest federal law enforcement officials in Birmingham, Jay Town shut down the bribery and money laundering investigation after meeting with Crosswhite. Only one "fall-guy" from Drummond and one from Balch were indicted, tried, and convicted, along with Robinson, who pleaded guilty. Borrowing a page from a 1980 RICO conspiracy, bribery, and fraud case in Birmingham federal court that was "fixed" to benefit executives at Alabama Power and the Drummond Company, Jay Town steered the North Birmingham Bribery case away from Mark Crosswhite and Mike Tracy and was rewarded with a cushy, high paying general counsel's job that U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) arranged for him with Huntsville-based defense contractor Gray Analytics after his resignation. (2) The demotion of Jay Town's handpicked First Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Peeples in 2021, who has burrowed himself into the Office as the head of its Criminal Division. Peeples is a failed Homewood, Alabama pizza restaurant owner with a dismal record on operating businesses and a documented history of hostility towards blacks and women. Despite his failure as a businessman, Jay Town had Peeples running the multi-million dollar U.S. Attorney's office on a day-to-day basis while Town drew a full-time salary for ceremonial work. (3) The 2021 meltdown of perennial political "dirty tricks" Joseph Perkins, Jr., and his PR firm, Matrix, LLC. In September of 2021, former Matrix CEO Jeff Pitts filed a lawsuit against Perkins in Florida alleging, for the first time in public, that Perkins engaged in (a) extortion, (b) abuses of the legal process in Alabama, and (c) an ongoing racketeering enterprise. Perkins, who is a confessed federal lawbreaker, has handled Alabama Power's "dirty tricks" operations on an outsourced basis for nearly two decades. Perkins and his companies are under a multi-agency and multi-state multiple law enforcement investigation that began in Florida. Alabama Power has historically funded Perkins and his entities using secret contracts that paid Perkins tens of millions of dollars, "without invoicing." Perkins' work as a "dirty tricks" operator is notorious and has garnered him lucrative contracts with Auburn University, Georgia Power Company (Atlanta), and the Southern Company (Atlanta) that deliberately obscure the nature of his work. (4) The abrupt resignation of U.S. District Court Judge Abdul K. Kallon on April 5, 2022. Kallon presided over the 2018 North Birmingham Bribery Trial involving Oliver Robinson, Drummond Company executive David Roberson and Balch partner Joel I. Gilbert, which portrayed Roberson and Gilbert as "lone wolves" in the bribery scheme. Kallon's resignation comes as federal investigators are probing obstruction of justice charges in the North Birmingham Bribery Trial. (5) The unexpected "retirement" of Drummond CEO Mike Tracy. Drummond is Alabama Power's longtime coal supplier for its dirty coal-fired power plants like the one Alabama Power operates at the Miller Steam Plant in Jefferson County, Alabama. This plant is the Number One air polluter in America. Tracy personally approved payments to two ethically-conflicted consultants who lobbied the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) to officially oppose the EPA clean-up initiative in North Birmingham. To conceal these payments from EPA officials and the public, Balch & Bingham General Counsel Blake Andrews paid these consultants directly and was later reimbursed by Drummond with Mike Tracy's expressed blessing. To the consternation of honest law enforcement investigators, Jay Town made sure Mike Tracy and Blake Andrews were not indicted or prosecuted for their roles in the bribery scheme. (6) The April 2022 suicide of Balch & Bingham lawyer, William Dice Lineberry. Mr. Lineberry was the lawyer who helped set up the money laundering entity "Alliance for Jobs and the Economy" (AJE), which was the entity that was used to: (a) receive corporate donations from willing participants in the bribery scheme and (b) funnel over $360,000 in bribery money to Oliver Robinson. (7) The April 7, 2022 resignations of two Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Birmingham with reported connections to the Office's investigation of the North Birmingham Bribery Scandal. (8) The reported designation of Alabama Power Company CEO and ex Balch partner Mark A Crosswhite as a "target" of a multi-state federal probe into charges of RICO conspiracy, bribery, and obstruction of justice. Federal investigators are also probing the relationship between Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning and Mark Crosswhite. At Fanning requests and without any prior notice to Alabama Power ratepayers or its state and federal regulators, Crosswhite funneled tens of millions in "bailout money" from Alabama Power's coffers to the Southern Company for a boondoggle nuclear power plant in Mississippi that: (a) the Southern Company is constructing, (b) has been grossly over budget for over a decade, and (c) is not intended to provide any electricity for Alabama Power's customers. An earlier probe into this matter by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was reportedly "fixed" by Sen. Richard Shelby with senior SEC officials in Washington to extricate Alabama Power and the Southern Company from civil and criminal exposure for this secret and unlawful diversion of Alabama Power's ratepayer funds. Open Questions There are open questions as to whether Joe Perkins is cooperating with federal authorities in the new multi-state probe. Perkins reportedly possesses "dirty secrets" files on compromised public officials and regulators who may have accepted laundered campaign contributions and other "things of value" in exchange for taking official action to help Alabama Power Company, Georgia Power Company, and the Southern Company sustained their respective business monopolies. Because of the number of individual culprits and corporate entities involved and the scope of Perkins "dirty tricks" operations, it appears that federal investigators are considering a potential RICO charge against the principal participants. Additionally, at least one more federal judge in Birmingham may be implicated in the criminal probe and may be forced to resign. Forbes' Written Complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice Took Courage Mr. Forbes and CDLU sent letters to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) at the U.S. Department of Justice on December 4, 2019, January 9, 2020, and January 29, 2020 that detailed widespread and credible allegations of public corruption and obstruction of justice spearheaded by Jay E. Town while he served as U.S. Attorney and Lloyd Peeples served as his First Assistant U.S. Attorney. [Click here to view Forbes' 12/4/19, 1/9/20 and 1/29/20 letters to OPR.] Both Jay Town and Lloyd Peeples have checkered backgrounds. Yet, they were warmly received in the Birmingham federal courthouse that served as the citadel for formal FBI COINTELPRO operations in Alabama, from 1956 to 1972, and informal COINTELPRO activities from 1972 to the present. This is the same Birmingham federal courthouse where former Chief U.S. District Court Judge Frank McFadden reportedly "fixed" the 1980 "Coal Fraud Trial" case against Alabama Power Company chief financial officer and Drummond Company director Walter F. Johnsey, Drummond Company CEO Gary Neal Drummond, state senator Joe Fine, and four other defendants, all of whom were charged with operating an ongoing criminal racketeering enterprise. Lead prosecutor Broward Segrest would later explain how and why the case was "fixed." Segrest's account of how and why McFadden "fixed" the case for Alabama Power and Drummond was subsequently confirmed by former Blount, Inc., CEO and Republican gubernatorial candidate Winton Blount, III, and another high level executive at Blount, Inc. After "fixing" the case for Alabama Power and Drummond, McFadden resigned and was promptly rewarded with a job as general counsel at Blount, Inc. This appears to be the same playbook that was used in the North Birmingham Bribery Scheme. After the case was allegedly "fixed," Jay Town resigned and was rewarded with a cushy, high-paying job as general counsel at Huntsville-based Gray Analytics. The only Alabama media organizations to investigate and publish news articles on the chokehold that Alabama Power Company, Drummond Company, Balch & Bingham, Joe Perkins, Matrix, and Senator Shelby have on federal law enforcement agencies and federal judges in Alabama have been Kevin Forbes and CDLU, Roger Shuler and his online publication, Legal Schnauzer, and www.donaldwatkins.com. Despite his status as a confessed federal lawbreaker, Joe Perkins is the "hunting buddy" of Sen. Shelby and Chief U.S. District Court Judge Scott Coogler (Birmingham). It is unclear as to who picks up the tab for these hunting excursions. Mr. Forbes, CDLU, Mr. Shuler, Legal Schnauzer, and I have been targeted for destruction by this band of culprits. Joe Perkins' handwritten notes outlined his plan to destroy me and was published on this news site in September of 2021. Epilogue A grateful public thanks to Kevin B. Forbes and CDLU for the courage and tenacity they have shown in rooting out the engrained corruption in the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. District Courthouse for the Northern District of Alabama. The job is not finished, but substantial progress has been made in eradicating this corruption. The Washington Post, which reported on "Alabama's Watergate" on April 3, 1977, now has a chance to report on the floodgate of public corruption at the highest level of federal law enforcement in Alabama 45 years later. At www.donaldwatkins.com, we will do our part to support Mr. Forbes, CDLU, Roger Shuler, and Legal Schnauzer.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published April 17, 2022 Three years ago, I was railroaded and convicted in a U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama (USA) on trumped up wire, mail, and bank fraud charges. On Tuesday, April 26, 2022, a three-judge panel of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is scheduled to hear the appeal in my case. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. CST at the Frank M. Johnson, Jr., Federal Courthouse in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. It is open to the public. [Click here to read the Watkins Opening Brief, the Government's Responsive Brief, and the Watkins Reply Brief in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.] USA v. Donald V. Watkins, Sr., and Donald V. Watkins, Jr., is the first case listed on the Court's docket for April 26th. The Court will hear legal arguments from attorneys representing my son, Donald V. Watkins, Jr., and and me, as well as the Government. The arguments are expected to last one hour. I am represented in the appeal by Montgomery, Alabama attorney, Mark Englehart, who is a true friend and remarkable human being. Attorney Englehart sat by my side thronughout my entire three-week trial in 2019. He has one of the best legal minds in the nation and is a brilliant appellate lawyer. Whether We Win or Lose the Appeal, We Have Already Served Our Time In Prison Donald, Jr., was found "Not Guilty" of bank fraud charges, but "Guilty" of a conspiracy charge to commit wire and mail fraud. He was sentenced to 27 months in a prison camp and was released last year. I received 60 months in prison. I was denied an appeal bond by U.S. District Court Judge Karon O. Bowdre and entered prison on August 28, 2019. On April 14, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) executed an agreement to transfer me to home confinement, but this transfer was blocked by Birmingham federal prosecutor Lloyd Peeples. Peeples feverishly lobbied the FCI Talladega Warden, the BOP's Central Office in Washington, and the U.S. Probation Office in Birmingham to oppose my release to home confinement. On November 3, 2020, Judge Bowdre denied a motion filed on my behalf for a compassionate release based upon my age (71 at the time) and pre-existing health conditions that exposed me to the highest risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. Thereafter, the BOP deliberately placed me in prison cells with federal inmates who were unvaccinated and who were diagnosed with confirmed cases of COVID-19. The BOP also entrusted my daily care to convicted gang leaders and murderers for more than three months at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, even though my extremely low custody classification score prohibited my exposure to violent prisoners. USP Atlanta was closed in July of 2021 due to widespread graft and corruption among the staff and inmate population. Convicted gang leaders literally ran the prison. The prison's 1,800 inmates were transferred to other BOP prison facilities. I am presently incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp at La Tuna in Anthony, New Mexico. By the time the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decides my case, I will likely be released from prison. Regardless of the outcome of the appeal, two innocent men were sent to prison in this case. We were guilty of being black in Alabama and highly successful in business. Imprisonment, Not Justice, Was the Goal of Birmingham Federal Prosecutors The singular goal of the Birmingham federal prosecutors was to imprison me, by any and all means necessary, whether I was innocent of the charges against me, or not. My son was taken as a hostage, with a proverbial gun to his head, in order to pressure me into pleading guilty. Both of us fought the bogus criminal charges because we were innocent. The allegations of wire and mail fraud in my case were first reviewed and evaluated by top-flight career prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey in 2015 and 2016, who found no wrongdoing on my part. The lead prosecutor in New Jersey congratulated me for my achievements in the international energy business. In October 2017, the Birmingham U.S. Attorney's Office, under the supervision of Jay Town and Lloyd Peeples, asked Atlanta-based U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials, who had a substantial conflict of interest in the case, to give them a shot at the case. The SEC obliged them. Jay Town is a small-time Republican political hack in Huntsville, Alabama. He was recommended as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama by U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) after Donald Trump became president. In July of 2017, Trump appointed Town to the job. Town qualified for the U.S. Attorney's job because: (a) he was featured in a TV campaign ad attacking President Barack Obama that Sen. Shelby ran during his 2016 re-election campaign, and (b) he enjoys the "white male privilege" that is often accorded to inadequate white male political operatives in Alabama. Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Jay Town was an obscure assistant district attorney in Madison County, Alabama with a lackluster record as a state prosecutor. Town resigned abruptly as U.S. Attorney in late 2020 after media organizations began looking into allegations that he "fixed" the outcome of a criminal investigation into a bribery scheme that paid more than $360,000 to state Rep. Oliver Robinson from a sham non-profit organization named the "Alliance for Jobs and the Economy" (AJE). AJE was funded by Alabama Power Company, the Drummond Company, and their business alliance partners. Oliver Robinson was paid this laundered money to derail an initiative by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to designate a black neighborhood in North Birmingham as an EPA Super-Fund cleanup site. This money-laundering and bribery scheme was structured and overseen by the Balch Bingham law firm in Birmingham, which represents Alabama Power Company. Prior to becoming the CEO at Alabama Power Company, Mark Crosswhite was a partner in Balch Bingham. In late 2020, a photograph surfaced showing Mark Crosswhite having celebratory drinks with Jay Town in a cozy lounge after Town steered the Oliver Robinson-North Birmingham bribery investigation away from Alabama Power's pivotal role in 2017. An embarrassed, flawed, and deeply compromised Jay Town left office amid allegations that he "fixed" the case for Alabama Power Company and Balch Bingham. Town's right-hand man was Lloyd Peeples. Peeples was a failed pizza store operator when Town hired him in October of 2017 to run the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama on a day-to-day basis as his First Assistant U.S. Attorney. With Peeples at the helm, Town remained in Huntsville and collected a full-time paycheck for performing ceremonial duties as the U.S. Attorney on a part-time basis. Apart from being financially distressed and failing miserably in private business, Peeples came into the U.S. Attorney's office with a documented history of hostility to women and blacks. Today, Lloyd Peeples is the Chief of the Office's Criminal Division. As a Trump political hack and holdover employee, Peeples has burrowed himself into the Office's bureaucracy where he continues to hustle a living off of federal taxpayers' money. Epilogue My son and I are doing well. We learned a long time ago how to navigate life in Alabama's sea of racial hatred. We also enjoy a very strong and loving family and friends support network that is derived from the interracial goodwill of five generations of Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins trailblazers who faced the same or similar racial hostility in the Deep South, and persevered. Donald, Jr., and I are hopeful about the outcome of our appeal. However, we are also realists. We know how "rigged" the federal criminal justice system is today, particularly against black, brown, and poor people in the Deep South. It will be interesting to see whether the three-judge panel that hears our appeal is all-white and whether these judges are from Alabama. In the end, my son and I are the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls. God has been on our side throughout this ordeal. He will deliver us safely to the other side of midnight. He always does.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published April 12, 2022 The United States announced last week that it expects the Russian-Ukraine War to last for years. It took me a while to figure why this war will drag out. Then I realized a fundamental truth about presidential leadership in America since the end of World War II in 1945. As a nation, we no longer fight to win wars. We engage in skirmishes and special operations in conflict zones long enough to get an adversary to the table for peace talks. This is what we did in Korea and Vietnam. Our adversaries killed America soldiers and contractors while running us out of Somalia. We did not have a strategy for winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, we lost in these war theaters in humiliating fashion. In 1994, America promised the Ukrainians that we would defend them from invaders if they gave up their nuclear weapons. To their detriment, they believed us and surrendered their nuclear weapons. Now, they are being slaughtered by Vladimir Putin and his Russian soldiers in a new Ukrainian Holocaust. Ukraine's Brave Fighting Spirit is Borne Out of the Nazis' Genocide of Its Citizens Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, they still believe in fighting to win wars. However, they are being supplied by America and other NATO nations that do not share this level of conviction. It must be frustrating for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military to set a goal of winning the war, only to realize that America and its NATO allies are cowards. America, its allies and partners are fighting Russian war crimes and genocide in Ukraine with meaningless economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs and a handful of financial institutions tied to Putin and these oligarchs. Germany, which is one of the key NATO members, ought to be ashamed of itself for not doing more to help the Ukrainians. One million of the six million Europeans Jews Nazi Germany exterminated during the reign of Adolf Hitler were Ukrainian Jews. The best-known massacre, with the greatest number of victims, took place in Babi Yar on the outskirts of Kyiv. There, in the course of two days on September 29 and 30, 1941, Heinrich Himmler's Einsatzgruppen, with the help local police formed by the German occupiers, gunned down 33,761 Jewish citizens of Kyiv. Those who tried to stop the Holocaust in Ukraine by rescuing Jews were subject not only to arrest but also to execution. Erich Koch, Germany's Reichskommissar (or ruling Commissioner) of Ukraine was particularly brutal. He was tasked with raping Ukraine of its resources and depopulating the conquered territory. He treated the Ukrainian population as European colonies treated blacks and Asians in their overseas colonies, asserting, "No German soldier will ever die for that nigger people." He proudly bolstered that, "if I find a Ukrainian who is worthy of sitting at the same table with me, I must have him shot." By the time the German occupation of Kyiv ended in November 1943, another 60,000 Nazi victims had found their final resting place in Babi Yar. Starting in January 1942, the Nazis exploited Ukraine as a source not only of agricultural products but also of forced labor. The Germans rounded up close to 2.2 million Ukrainians and sent them off to Germany by force in 1942 and 1943. Many died of malnutrition, disease, and Allied bombing of the military and munitions factories where they worked. Those who survived and were liberated by Russian Army soldiers in late 1944 and 1945 (only 120,000 individuals registered as displaced persons at the end of the war) were often treated as traitors, and some were shipped directly from German concentration camps to Soviets ones in the Gulag system. Germany Owes Ukraine A Full Measure of Protection from Russia Germany never fully atoned for its murderous role in the Ukrainian Holocaust. Yet, Germany is watching Russia inflict its modern-day version of genocide on innocent Ukrainian men, women, and children, and is doing absolutely nothing to prevent it. Russia is doing to Ukraine what Hitler did. No NATO country is standing up to Russia's ongoing genocide in Ukraine. All of them are afraid of Putin. Their actions are based on this fear. This is why they are only trying to punish Russia for murdering innocent Ukrainian citizens, rather than stopping the Holocaust. Germany owes Ukraine a special measure of protection. It has an affirmative obligation to save at least 40 Ukrainian lives for every one it murdered during World War II. Germany cannot bring Nazi-era Ukraine Holocaust victims back to life, but it can stop Russia from creating new Holocaust victims. [Author's Note: Celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy is a professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and is the director of the University's Ukrainian Research Institute. Plokhy is also the author of "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, published by Basic Books, New York (2015, 2021). Plokhy explains that today's crisis in Ukraine is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine's sovereignty. Situated between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine has been shaped by empires that exploited the nation as a strategic gateway between East and West -- from the Roman and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. In "The Gates of Europe," he examines Ukraine's search for its identity through the lives of major Ukrainian historical figures, from its heroes to its conquerors. I drew heavily from Plokhy's book to connect Ukraine's past with its present and future.]

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on April 3, 2022 Will Smith committed a violent black-on-black crime on national TV during the 2022 Oscars program. Smith trespassed onto the stage, without an invitation to do so, and committed a violent assault and battery on co-host Chris Rock. Afterwards, Smith continued his assault in front of the world telling Rock (twice) in loud and profane language to "Keep my wife's name out of your fuc---- mouth." Chris Rock handled Smith's violent assault and battery with class and grace. To his credit, Rock did not fight back. Rock simply rose above Will Smith's felony assault and battery upon him. Now, I am beginning to understand why violent crime is a growing phenomenon in Los Angeles. Smith committed a felonious assault on National TV, without any fear of law enforcement consequences. There is NO EXCUSE for Smith's violent criminal behavior! I condemn it, without hesitation or reservation. Will Smith does not get a pass from me for his violent crime simply because he is a rich, black, Hollywood celebrity. Smith has now defined himself as a violent criminal who is roaming free in Hollywood. Smith Disrespected All of Us With his felonious assault and battery, Will Smith disrespected the faith and trust the family of Richard Williams bestowed upon him to portray the greatest tennis coach in history in the movie, "King Richard," which is based upon Richard Williams life. The world will now remember Will Smith's slap more than the movie that honors Richard Williams' decades-long work in coaching Venus and Serena Williams into the two greatest tennis stars in the history of the sport. Richard Williams, his former wife, and the Williams children are wonderful, law-abiding human beings. As a celebrity family, they never brought disgrace upon themselves. They certainly did not not deserve the dishonor and disgrace Will Smith brought to their family name. Smith also disrespected Chris Rock by making him a victim of violent black-on-black crime on national TV. Some people seek to excuse Smith's felonious conduct by focusing on the "G.I. Jane" joke Chris Rock made about Smith's wife Jada Pinkett, who suffers from alopecia (a non-life threatening dermatological disease that causes hair loss). Smith and Pinkett both must realize that she is a successful Hollywood movie star and a widely-recognized "public figure." Whether the Smiths like it, or not, Jada's celebrity status makes her fair game for PG-rated jokes from comedians and others. Smith also disrespected black America by perpetuating the negative stereotype that too many whites around the world have about black Americans -- that we have a propensity for violence in settling disputes among ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are the most non-violent race of people on the planet. For centuries, African-Americans have tolerated all forms of physical abuse from many perpetrators, without resorting to violence. However, you would not know this historical fact from Will Smith's unprovoked violent attack on Chris Rock. Smith humiliated the Oscars program executives who asked him to leave the ceremony immediately after he committed his violent crime in plain view of the world. Smith would not leave the program. These gutless executives should have had security promptly and forcibly escort Smith from the program after the incident, but they did not. By failing to eject Smith from the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tacitly condoned his violent behavior. In contrast, if a college or professional athlete had slapped another athlete during a game, he/she would have been ejected immediately. Yet, Will Smith was allowed to stay in the audience and come on stage again to accept his "Best Actor" award for "King Richard." Afterwards, Smith was smiling, dancing, and partying with his award in hand. The Hollywood crowd had apparently forgiven him. Finally, Will Smith disrespected all Americans who believe in law and order. Violence is NEVER the answer to any perceived verbal insult. Only thugs answer perceived verbal insults with violence. Will Smith Must Be Punished for His Violent Crime Will Smith must be severely punished for his violent conduct. The district attorney for Los Angeles County must prosecute Smith for his felonious assault and battery on Chris Rock. If the current district attorney lacks the balls to do so, he should resign from office so that a real prosecutor can handle the case. To restore its credibility and integrity, the Academy must impose strong sanctions upon Will Smith. He is the first and only member of the Academy to commit a felonious assault and battery on a program host on the premises during the televised ceremony. The Academy's proverbial "slap" must be harder than the one Smith gave Rock. The Academy must show that criminal conduct will never be tolerated in its presence. The Academy should take back Smith's Oscar award and ban his future participation in all of the Academy activities for a period of at least three years. Smith needs to fully understand the consequences of his violent actions. Chris Rock was NOT the only victim of Smith's violent crime. We all were. This is not the time for the Hollywood crowd to exhibit its traditional weakness as "bleeding heart liberals." If a white actor had slapped Chris Rock under the same circumstances, every civil rights and media group in the world would be demanding the same or greater sanctions, including a swift criminal prosecution for the perpetrator. Will Smith committed his violent crime, alone and unprovoked. None of us bears any responsibility to help a Hollywood multi-millionaire mitigate the blowback from his thoughtless, reckless, violent, criminal actions at the Oscars. Finally, I do not want to hear any black person try to blame Will Smith's embarrassing and violent conduct on white racism. Don't even go there.