By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on October 31, 2021 On August 2, 2015, I published an article predicting that Donald J. Trump, who entered the Republican primary two weeks earlier, would win his Party's nomination for president and the presidency itself. Political pundits thought I had lost my mind. They quickly dismissed my prediction as sheer fantasy. History proved that I was right and other presidential forecasters wrong. Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Five years later, I predicted that Donald Trump would lose his re-election bid in 2020 due to his gross mismanagement of America's response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, hundreds of thousands of Americans were dying from COVID, with no end in sight. Trump's response was: "It is what it is." My prediction was right, again. Democrat Joe Biden won the presidency in November of 2020 by seven million votes. To be clear, Biden won the election solely because he was the "default" candidate for independent voters who turned away from Trump in six swing states. Without COVID as a factor in the race, Biden would not have won the presidency. Joe Biden is Likely a One-Term President Today, Joe Biden is sinking in a number of national polls. At the rate Biden is sinking, he is likely to be a one-term president like Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican George H.W. Bush. Biden's Afghanistan troop withdrawal debacle in August cost him dearly in the polls. Furthermore, Biden does not have the political resolve necessary to get two new pieces of critical voting rights legislation passed in Congress. Additionally, Biden lacked the leadership necessary to pass much of his highly touted $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. A scaled down $1.75 trillion version of the "Build Back Better" legislation still has not passed in Congress. As Biden approaches the end of his first year in office, it is clear that he has diminished charisma, energy, and credibility. Biden's immigration policies are incoherent. He has filled only a fraction of the 4,000 political positions that serve at the pleasure of the president. On most days, Biden seems lost unless he is reading from a teleprompter. Most Democrats seem to be as frustrated with Biden's "leadership" abilities as are Independents like me. Biden is a marshmallow politician whose time on the Washington scene has come and gone. Trump is the De Facto Leader of the Republican Party Donald Trump is the de facto leader of the Republican Party today, even though he is out of office and banned from Facebook and Twitter. A recent poll in Iowa showed that 90% of Republican voters favor Trump should he run again in 2024. Most Republicans in Congress, in state governorships, and in state legislatures still worship Trump as the Party's leader. None of them seem to care that Trump continues to lie about his 2020 election loss, which he attributes to widespread voter fraud that no one has been able to prove in more than 60 court cases, endless post-election contests, and election outcome audits. Beyond Trump, none of the other Republicans has enough stature or voter appeal to be selected as the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nominee. They are all miniature clones of Trump, but without Trump's flair for non-stop drama. Barring divine intervention from God, Donald Trump will be the likely Republican nominee in 2024. If Joe Biden runs again, I predict that he will lose to Trump. If Biden foregoes re-election and Kamala Harris runs for president, I predict that Trump will rout her in the November 2024 general election. Factors That Favor a Trump Victory Several factors favor a Trump victory in 2024. All of them have racial underpinnings. First, Trump is a known political commodity to his base of voters. He understands the primary motivation of his voters and he plays to it. Trump's voters are overwhelmingly white conservatives who live in fear that whites will soon become the "minority" population in America. They want what conservatives call "stability and cultural continuity of the nation." In street language, they want white folks to continue running the political, economic, and cultural affairs in America. Based upon 2020 Census data and demographic trends over the last 50 years, whites will become a "minority" population by 2030. Their birth rates have plummeted since 2008. The 2020 Census showed, for the first time, that more whites died than were born during the past ten years. Furthermore, of the children born in America during this period, the majority were of Hispanic and African-American ethnicity. Second, whether it's publicly acknowledged or not, racial animus drives all politics in the Republican Party. As FOX talk show host Tucker Carlson explains in his endorsement of the "great replacement " conspiracy theory, Democrats are replacing white Americans with nonwhite immigrants in order to increase their vote tallies. This is a patently false assertion that plays well in Republican circles. What is more, it has produced waves of racist voter suppression laws that America has not seen since the Jim Crow era (1896 to 1965). Race animus is also driving unprecedented levels of gerrymandering in legislative redistricting plans enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Additionally, race has driven legislation that authorizes Republican-controlled legislatures to essentially nullify any presidential election results in their states that they do not like. Third, Trump knows that, in the eyes of his voters, the political ends the Republican Party seeks justify the means that Trump and his acolytes deploy. For example, Trump and his supporters believe that the constitutional right to abortion must be nullified or overturned because too many whites babies are being aborted at a time when white birth rates are already plummeting. Also, Republican support for police officers is "great" when officers are abusing and killing black unarmed suspects. However, this support was sorely lacking when uniformed police officers tried to stop armed white insurrectionists from invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a violent effort to block the certification of Biden as president. Furthermore, open borders were fine in America when the migrants, both legal or illegal, were whites who came from predominantly white European countries. This is why the United States openly recruited white European immigrants to come to America from 1862 to 1986 under the Homestead Act of 1862 and gave three million of those who responded to the call a minimum of 160 acres of free land (with mineral and timber rights included). It did not matter to the U.S. government whether these white migrants came through Ellis Island in New York, or through California, Washington state, or Oregon, or through America's open borders with Canada or Mexico. In fact, Donald Trump's paternal grandfather, who was a criminal in Europe, came to America during this open recruitment period. Once he was on U.S. soil, Trump's grandfather continued and expanded his criminal enterprise. He later took his ill-gotten gains back to Germany and tried to repatriate the family. However, Germany refused to return his citizenship and demanded that he leave due to his violations of German law. Fourth, Trump has voter permission to trash any Republican who crosses him. Trump's rhetorical castration of Jeff Sessions, his former Attorney General and a popular four-term U.S. Senator from Alabama, is a classic example of this treatment. Sessions was the first Republican U.S. Senator to endorse Trump's 2020 run for president. When Trump won, he appointed Sessions as Attorney General. Three months later, Trump was publicly bashing Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Trump called Sessions an "idiot," a "traitor," "mentally retarded," and a "dumb Southerner." Trump even made fun of Sessions' Southern accent and denigrated his legal education at The University of Alabama. Despite Trump's unabated bashing of Sessions, "dumb Southerners," and The University of Alabama, he won Alabama by a 20% margin in 2020. Fifth, from a white, conservative voter perspective, Donald Trump is the only proven Republican candidate who will say and do whatever is necessary to stop or slow the "browning of America." Nothing else seems to matter to his hardcore base of voters. The rest of the presidential candidates are light-weight, dollar-store imitators. Epilogue The outcome of the 2024 election will boil down to five or six swing states, again. I do not think Biden can win re-election. At this juncture, Kamala Harris does not appear to be a politically viable stand-in as the Democratic nominee. It does not seem that Congress will pass Biden's new voting rights legislation to protect his traditional base of voters of color. What is worse, President Biden simply does not have the political will or muscle to get it done. Meanwhile, the arch-conservative, politically-motivated, U.S. Supreme Court continues to engage in unabashed judicial activism to gut the rights of voters of color between now and the 2024 election, using any and all means necessary. The Court seems hell-bent on returning America to the Dred Scott era (1857 to 1896) when it proudly announced from the bench in Washington, on a 7-2 vote, that blacks in America, whether enslaved or free, "had no rights that the white man was bound to respect." Joe Biden's Department of Justice appears to be too weak and timid to protect his base of Democratic voters from the resurgence of Jim Crow era voter suppression and nullification measures at the state level. Republicans in state government have seized control of the electoral process, from setting voter registration requirements, to saying how, when, and where people can vote, to nullifying election results. They are prepared to do whatever it takes to install a kleptocratic form of white "minority rule" in American politics.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on November 14, 2021 An Editorial Opinion I knew that whoever had organized the multi-year, multi-federal agency Blitzkrieg against me had to be a powerful figure on the Washington political scene. It had to be someone who could orchestrate a modern-day lynching of a well-known social justice advocate by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), two divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Department (IRS), federal courts in Alabama and Atlanta, and the Pentagon -- all with no questions asked. The one thing all of these federal agencies had in common was their annual pilgrimage to Capitol Hill for agency funding from the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Any one of these agencies would do the political bidding of a powerful U.S. Senator on the Senate Appropriations Committee. This is particularly true if a request to Blitzkrieg an innocent U.S. citizen is made by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In such a case, the Senator's political enemy becomes their enemy -- with no questions asked. The Blitzkrieg is Used To Destroy Civil Rights Activists and Political Dissidents A Blitzkrieg is a coordinated assault on a targeted victim by multiple government agencies that is designed to bring down the full weight of the federal government on the victim, all at one time. A Blitzkrieg is intended to break the victim, psychologically, physically, and financially. In some cases, a Blitzkrieg causes the victim to commit suicide. U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) caused the government to Blitzkrieg innocent citizens during his highly publicized witch-hunt for communists in America in 1954. McCarthy's Blitzkrieg destroyed the lives of scores of innocent Americans in Hollywood and other parts of the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover took the Blitzkrieg to a more sinister place during the reign of his infamous COINTELPRO program (1956 to 1971) to discredit and destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and thousands of other civil rights activists. As part of Hoover's Blitzkrieg, the FBI tried unsuccessfully to force Dr. King to commit suicide in 1963 before King accepted his Nobel Peace Prize. Hoover succeeded with Jean Seberg, a pregnant white actress who was the victim of a vicious FBI "whisper campaign" that spread a false rumor in Hollywood that the child she was carrying was fathered by a Black Panther Party leader. After her child died at birth, an emotionally distraught Seberg killed herself in Paris with an overdose of barbiturates. The White House and Pentagon have also participated in Blitzkrieg campaigns when they thought it was necessary to cover-up illegal activity that left top officials exposed to criminal prosecutions. This happened with the military's cover-up of the Army's massacre of up to 504 unarmed men, women, and children on March 16, 1968 in My Lai, Vietnam. The brave officers who reported the massacre were subjected to an intense Blitzkrieg campaign orchestrated by the Pentagon. Three years later, President Richard Nixon and his top White House aides engaged in a host of "dirty tricks" against Daniel Ellsberg from 1971 to 1973 over his release of the Pentagon Papers. They also had Ellsberg criminally prosecuted for leaking the Pentagon Papers. The Nixon White House even approved of a plot by CIA operatives to "neutralize" Ellsberg. Smoking Out Shelby It did not take long to smoke out Sen. Richard Shelby as the culprit who organized the Blitzkrieg against me. He has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1987. Shelby is now the longest-serving U.S. Senator from Alabama and one of the longest serving Senators in U.S. history. He has chaired and/or served on the Senate Appropriations Committee and chaired the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations. As such, Shelby held the purse strings to every federal agency that participated in the Blitzkrieg against me. Shelby decides who will serve as U.S. Attorneys in Alabama, who will serve as U.S. District Court judges in Alabama, and who will serve as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Additionally, Shelby has substantial influence on who will serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. With his clout in Washington, Shelby can put a targeted victim on the receiving end of a Blitzkrieg by merely whispering in the ear of the heads of federal agencies during or after Appropriations Committee meetings. In Congress, Shelby's personal interests, and not politics, frequently drive his decision-making in public office. Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Shelby came to Washington with a modest net worth, but he is leaving the Senate filthy rich by Wall Street standards. Shelby has never publicly explained how he became rich off of a Congress member's salary. Shelby's Potential Culpability for Criminal Actions? When Shelby retires from the Senate in January 2023, he will leave a trail of shady dealings that may expose him to culpability for several federal crimes. One area of culpability centers around Shelby's key involvement in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) highly suspect, truncated, and rushed certification of Boeing's fatally flawed 737 MAX aircrafts. This flying deathtrap killed 346 passengers and crew members in fatal crashes in 2017 and 2018. Plenty of campaign money changed hands between political action committees affiliated with Boeing executives and Richard Shelby's senatorial campaign as a result of the FAA's certification of this aircraft. This money exchange appears to be a fumigated version of "pay-to-play." Shelby is also implicated in the Pentagon's cover-up of the July 2005 murder of 19-year-old black Army Private LaVena Johnson on a military base in Ballad, Iraq. Private Johnson was murdered by Kevin P. Byrnes, a popular white four-star general who was carrying on a torrid extramarital affair on the base, in contravention of a direct order from the Army's Chief of Staff. Byrnes murdered Private Johnson after she inadvertently discovered him engaged in the heat of passion with his forbidden lover. After the murder, Byrnes staged the crime scene to make it appear as though Private Johnson had committed suicide. Byrnes was kicked out of the Army about two weeks after he murdered Private Johnson, but he was never prosecuted for her murder. The Pentagon's file on Private Johnson's murder is classified as "Top Secret" and remains sealed to this day. After Gen. Byrnes was fired from the Army, Senator Shelby secured a high-paying executive position for him with defense contractor Raytheon in Huntsville, Alabama. Shelby Participated in the FBI's COINTELPRO Program from 1963 to 1971 Richard Shelby was born on May 6, 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama. Shelby received his undergraduate degree in 1957 and law degree in 1963 from the all-white University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. After graduating from law school, Shelby lived and worked in Tuscaloosa as a prosecutor for the city (from 1963 to 1971) and a U.S. magistrate for the Northern District of Alabama (from 1966 to 1971). In his law enforcement capacities, Shelby was a direct and willing participant in the FBI's COINTELPRO program in the Northern District of Alabama. Between 1963 and 1971, Shelby aggressively used his law enforcement positions to railroad thousands of blacks in judicial proceedings conducted by all-white, like-minded trial judges in Tuscaloosa city's and the Northern District's criminal justice systems. What is more, Shelby worked in Tuscaloosa at a time when fellow Tuscaloosa native Robert M. Shelton rose to national prominence and reigned supreme as the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, Inc. (UKA) from 1961 to 1987. In 1965, Shelton's UKA was the largest Ku Klux Klan group in the U.S. with 30,000 members. As a Tuscaloosa city prosecutor, Shelby never brought a single case against Shelton or the UKA for the KKK's widespread violence against blacks in Tuscaloosa. Because of his "Old South" value system and COINTELPRO background, Shelby has never been comfortable with black people who did not subjugate themselves to an "Uncle Tom" role in his life. Today, Shelby is an old-school racist whose exterior veneer has been buffed out over the last 43 years with Washington's high-gloss PR polish. Back-Channeling a Directive for My Judicial Lynching? Richard Shelby has a close association with two Tuscaloosa natives: Scott Coogler, the Chief U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, and Joe Perkins, a longtime "dirty tricks" operator on Alabama's political scene. These men are Shelby's hunting buddies. Coogler, who has been a federal judge since 2003, reportedly handles backchannel messaging for Shelby within the Birmingham federal courthouse. As a federal judge, Coogler enjoys the freedom to chitchat with fellow judges and U.S. magistrates in the courthouse about specific cases. Questions have arisen about whether Coogler shares with his colleagues inside the courthouse what views Shelby holds regarding particular cases of interest to the Senator. Shelby's views carry great weight with sitting judges because he is politically responsible for all of the judges who have been appointed to the federal bench in Alabama in the last 43 years. Shelby's political enemies are lynched inside Alabama's federal courthouses whenever he wants to enjoy a good, old-fashioned hanging. Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman's 2006 judicial lynching is a case in point. Joe Perkins handles political "dirty tricks" for Sen. Shelby much like G. Gordon Libby and E. Howard Hunt handled them for President Richard Nixon. Unlike Libby and Hunt, Perkins escaped criminal prosecution by the DOJ in 1988 for making illegal campaign contributions to the 1985 Congressional campaign of Roy Johnson solely because the three-year statute of limitations on this crime had expired. Joe Perkins' played a prominent role in my lynching, which is detailed in 12 pages of his own handwritten notes. [Click here to read Perkins' notes.] It is highly unlikely that Perkins would have engaged in "dirty tricks" that border on witness tampering and obstruction of justice in my case without the blessing of his political "Godfather" and hunting buddy -- Sen. Richard Shelby. After all, Shelby has ironclad control over the federal law enforcement apparatus in Alabama and can thwart any federal criminal investigation of his minions that arises within the state. Matrix, LLC, Joe Perkins' political consulting and crisis management firm, is currently embroiled in a red hot crisis of its own. On September 2, 2021, Jeff Pitts, Matrix's former chief executive officer, sued Perkins in Florida and alleged that Matrix engaged in: (a) a pattern and practice of criminal racketeering activities, (b) extortion, and (c) abuse of the Alabama judicial process. More recently, Matrix has come under scrutiny for drawing $15,000 per month since September 2019 from Auburn University for what appears to be "no show" work. Epilogue I survived Richard Shelby's Blitzkrieg and a courthouse lynching in Birmingham. Remarkably, two law enforcement agencies refused to participate in this coordinated lawlessness. The first agency is the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey. In 2015, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman and his Economic Crimes Division chief, Mr. Andrew Kogan, reviewed the evidence of "investor fraud" that Shelby's Birmingham political hacks would later use as a pretext to lynch me. In 2016, Fishman and Kogan cleared me of all allegations of wrongdoing. The second agency that declined to participate in the lynching is the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, whose director (Spencer Collier) refused a direct order from Gov. Robert Bentley in 2016 to open a criminal investigation of me without probable cause for doing so. Bentley promptly fired Collier for disobeying his order. Today, I feel a lot like Jed Cooper, the fictional character/innocent man who survived a lynching in Clint Eastwood's 1968 classic Western film, "Hang 'Em High." After my lynching, I was able to untangle the web of lies and deceit that Shelby and his minions peddled in the courts of public opinion and law. Now that I know who and what I am fighting, I know how to fight and win. Like Jed Cooper, I am determined to bring everybody who participated in my lynching to justice using all lawful means necessary to achieve this goal.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on November 25, 2021 Today is the day many Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. This celebration has been a tradition in the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family for six generations. This is the day we set aside to give thanks to God for all of the blessings HE has bestowed upon our family each year. As a fourth generation progenitor in the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family's line of descent, these are some of the things I am particular thankful for this on this Thanksgiving Day: 1. God has blessed me with five wonderful children who have always made me proud. In turn, these children have given me eight exceptionally gifted grandchildren. My children and grandchildren are fifth and sixth generation progenitors who know their documented family history, dating back to the 1830s. They know who they are, where they came from, and where they are going in society. The fifth and sixth generations of family members grew up knowing no cultural and geographical boundaries. They are multilingual in their communication skills and international in their travels and experiences. 2. All Watkins family members have enjoyed wonderful childhoods that were filled with love, learning, and respect for humanity. All of us grew up with our heroes in our homes. We were never condemned to serve a life sentence in a prison of social mores that dictated who we could love and how we could love them. 3. We continue to lead America in biomedical research, the production of entertainment content, and breaking down color-barriers in business and technology. As we have done for six generations, Watkins family members always seek to impact society in a positive way. 4. We continue to educate, motivate, and mentor the most gifted minds in America. As we have done since my father co-founded The New Herald newspaper Clarksville, Tennessee in March of 1935, we continue to publish regular, clear, thoughtful news and editorials on matters of significant public interest to a diversified readership. 5. We are bridging the cultural divide between the African-American and Hispanic communities nationwide. These two communities have much in common. One was decimated by slavery in America, while the other is under attack in "Red States" and along the southern border of the United States. Both communities have been the victims of long and ugly period of unrelenting economic, political, racial, and social discrimination in America. 6. Together with like-minded Americans of interracial goodwill, we are forming a California-based political action committee (PAC) that focuses on mitigating the pervasive adverse impact of national domestic policies that hurt Americans of color, women, religious minorities, and the LTGBQ communities through voter education, registration, and participation activities that target at least two million Independent voters six swing states. We expect that the PAC will be fully funded at the $10 million level in time for the 2024 presidential elections. 7. With blessings from God, the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family has been able to "give forward" by fully funding academic scholarships at: Alabama State University (Montgomery), Tennessee State University (Nashville), Spellman College (Atlanta), LeMoyne-Owen College (Memphis), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville), and Johns Hopkins University Medical Center (Baltimore). Individual education-related financial assistance has also been awarded to deserving students in the United States and abroad. With God's continue blessings, this family can and will do more. 8. My three living siblings have been incredible sources of love, strength, and support throughout my life. This has been a personal blessing for me. We started out as six children born to Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr. and Ms. Lillian Bernice Varnado Watkins in the 1940s and 50s. Two of our siblings are deceased. My siblings and I always knew that we were six of the luckiest people on the planet because we were the only children in the world who possessed "Certificates of Birth" that listed Levi and Lillian Watkins as our parents. To this day, my "Certificate of Birth" is the most cherished document in my possession. Nobody can ever take this away from me. The accumulated and earned goodwill that is derived from our "Certificates of Birth" will always trump the value of material possessions or money. 9. We are thankful for the abundance of high-quality, life-enhancing opportunities that continue to come our way. However, we also realize, "To whom much is given, much more is required." As a family, we have always embraced the opportunity to serve humanity without seeking favor or recognition. With God's continued help, we can and will do more. 10. We are thankful for the opportunity to commune with God on a daily basis. There is no greater love than the love God has for all of His children. Without a doubt, God has favored the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family for six generations. For these blessings and many more, the Carmichael/Varnado/Watkins family is thankful on this Thanksgiving Day! We wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving Day! Enjoy this time with your family, friends, and loved ones.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 13, 2021 Alabama has nineteen appellate court justices and judges. All of them are white. As explained below, these courts have been all-white for a very long time. Blacks in Alabama hold appointed and/or elected judgeships in cities and counties where they constitute the majority population. The Alabama constitution and state laws refer to these judgeships as "inferior" courts. As the recent case of Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Tracie A. Todd demonstrated to all blacks in Alabama, a duly elected black circuit court judge can be removed from the bench whenever his/her judicial rulings displease the state's all-white appellate court judges. Todd was permanently removed from the bench in 2021 solely because she followed established U.S. Supreme Court rulings governing death penalty cases, rather than the legally erroneous and racially discriminatory decisions of the all-white Alabama Supreme Court on this subject. I characterize Alabama's state court system as a modern-day form of judicial apartheid, which I find to be unconscionable in the 21st century. Why Judicial Apartheid Must Be Dismantled All nine justices on the Alabama Supreme Court are white. All five judges on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals are white. And, all five judges on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals are white. According to the 2020 census, Alabama has a 25.6% black population, a 26.25% black voting age population, and 26.39% black registered voters. Yet, no black has served on the Alabama's appellate courts since Associate Supreme Court Justice John England was defeated in the November 2000 general elections. In the 146-year history of Alabama's appellate courts, only three blacks -- Oscar Adams, Ralph Cook, and England -- have served on the state's appellate courts. All three men served as Associate Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court. Sadly, their combined tenure on the bench was limited to a service period from 1982 to January of 2001 -- only 19 years. No black has ever served as a judge on the state's courts of civil and criminal appeals. What is more, none of the five gubernatorial appointments to the state's appellate courts since 2001 has been black. In keeping with tradition, all of them have been white males. Alabama's At-Large Election System Was Designed to Purposefully Discriminate Against Blacks The apparatus for selecting justices and judges to Alabama's appellate courts and ensuring that the candidates elected to the judicial bench would be all-white was birthed with the "Redeemer" Constitution of 1875. This constitution signaled an open return to "white supremacy." A system of at-large elections and gubernatorial appointments for many local and statewide offices, including judgeships on the state's appellate courts, was specifically designed to restore "white supremacy" after white southerners witnessed a post-Civil War Reconstruction period from 1867 to 1870 that resulted in significant black voter participation and office-holding, from local government positions, to legislative seats, to Congressional offices. Delegates to the 1875 "Redeemer" constitutional convention viewed the at-large election scheme as the best vehicle to ensure that white bloc voting would foreclose the opportunity for black voters to elect candidates of their choice to appellate judgeships and other key offices, and they openly said so. This at-large election system carried forward to the Constitution of 1901. Throughout the constitutional convention of 1901, white Alabama politicians were obsessed with concerns over black voting power and office-holding. As a result, racial segregation was mandated in all aspects of life in the 1901 constitution and a multitude of state statutes that followed it. In 1986, a federal court in Alabama described the state's legally enforced racial apartheid this way: Alabama had an "unrelenting historical agenda, spanning from the late 1880s to the 1980s, to keep its black citizens economically, socially, and politically downtrodden, from the cradle to the grave." As expected, the passage of time did not transform the state's unconstitutional appellate court judgeship selection system into a constitutional one. The Time for a Change is Now I am using my appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court (and probably to the U.S. Supreme Court) in the case of Donald V. Watkins and Donald V. Watkins, P.C. v. Matrix, LLC and Joseph W. Perkins, Jr., to challenge the at-large election apparatus that has produced an all-white Alabama Supreme Court since 2001. This case involves an appeal from a $1.5 million summary judgment in favor of Matrix and Joe Perkins in a defamation case where I asserted my First Amendment "freedom of speech" and "freedom of press" rights under the 1964 landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny. In 2017, I used my online media platform and journalistic skills to seek justice for a 19-year-old University of Alabama honors student named Megan Rondini after she committed suicide in 2016 because the Tuscaloosa man she accused of raping her escaped criminal justice. It took years of persistent reporting on the state's flawed criminal justice system before all of the individuals and entities responsible for Megan Rondini's death settled with her estate in its wrongful death case. T.J. Bunn, Jr., the designated "rape suspect" in Megan's case, finally settled with Rondini's estate in September of 2021. Students of history will remember that New York Times v. Sullivan also arose from a defamation case filed in an Alabama state court six decades ago. Montgomery Police Commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the New York Times claiming that he had been defamed in a full page advertisement in the Times titled, "Heed Their Rising Voices." The advertisement criticized a "wave of terror" against civil rights demonstrations in the South led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of the assertions in the advertisement were accurate; a few were not. Segregationist Governor John Patterson joined the lawsuit and added Dr. King and four other prominent black ministers as defendants, even though they did not prepare the advertisement or cause it to be published. The plaintiffs were awarded $500,000 by an all-white jury. The white trial court judge allowed the jury verdict stand. On appeal, the all-white Alabama Supreme Court upheld the jury verdict against the defendants. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment and established the bedrock principle that plaintiffs in defamation cases who are "public officials" or "public figures" must plead and prove that the writer and publisher of the alleged defamatory statements acted with "actual malice" or a "reckless disregard for the truth" of the statements that were published. New York Times v. Sullivan is still the law of the land in First Amendment cases. However, it was not followed by a Governor Robert Bentley-appointed Tuscaloosa judge in my case, who is white. On August 20, 2021, this judge awarded $1.5 million to Perkins, who is white, and Matrix without conducting a trial and without finding "actual malice" or a "reckless disregard for the truth" regarding the statements I published in the Rondini articles. Some of Birmingham's Black "Leaders" Have Accepted All-White Appellate Courts Some of Birmingham's so-called black "leaders" have sent word to me through private channels that I should leave the all-white appellate court system alone. These "leaders" have apparently come to terms with living in a state that practices a modern-day form of judicial apartheid. Like many of Birmingham's local black "leaders" in the 1950s and 60s, some of today's black "leaders" don't want to upset the white oligarchy that runs the state with an ironclad fist. They have totally succumbed to the whims of these oligarchs. You probably know who some of these black "leaders" are. One runs the city of Birmingham. Another one represents Alabama's black community in Congress. And, some of them are members of the state legislature. These "leaders" obviously lack the courage to tackle today's modern-day judicial apartheid in Alabama. They have convinced themselves that an all-white appellate court system is perfectly okay in a state with 26.39% black registered voters in 2021. "Please Do Not Forget About Us" Mr. Ramus Rhodes was my friend, mentor, and mop-closet "professor" in law school. He was a Stillman college-educated teacher who worked as the janitor at the University of Alabama's law school (Farrah Hall) while I was a student there from 1970 to 1973. I have written many articles about Mr. Rhodes and the positive impact he had on my life. This brilliant man single-handedly molded me into a fearless, well-prepared, focused, and effective warrior for social justice in Alabama's all-white, racially-hostile judicial system. When white law students looked at Mr. Rhodes, they only saw a "mascot" who played the piano on the law school's float in the homecoming parade and who cleaned Farrah Hall for them with his "mop and bucket." When I looked at Mr. Rhodes, I saw an intellectual giant among men who provided for his family by working as a full-time janitor in the only job that was available to him. To this day, Mr. Rhodes is one of the smartest and greatest men I have ever met. In return for the time, energy, and knowledge Mr. Rhodes lovingly shared with me, he only asked for one commitment on the day I graduated from law school in May of 1973 -- "Please do not forget about us." The "us" Mr. Rhodes was referring to were all of the black janitors, maids, ditch-diggers, grass-cutters, laundry workers, cafeteria workers, sanitation workers, maintenance workers, painters, plumbers, window-washers, street-sweepers, truck drivers, and laborers who worked on campus, as well as all of the blacks around Alabama who took pride in seeing the first group of black students -- Michael Figures, Booker Forte, Ronald Jackson, George Jones, and me -- desegregate the University's law school in a sea of racial hostility on campus. Mr. Rhodes told me that his children, and their children, and tens of thousands of blacks in Alabama would benefit from my civil rights work for generations to come, but only if I did not forget my commitment to him. With tears streaming down his face, Mr. Rhodes shook my hand using both of his large hands. I felt the thick calluses on his hands; calluses that came from decades of mopping and cleaning Farrah Hall. I started crying, too. I looked Mr. Rhodes in the eyes and gave him my word that I would never forget him or "them," ever. I promised Mr. Rhodes that, as long as I had a breath of life left in me, I would fight with all of my strength, all of my intellect, and all of my heart to eliminate all forms of racial apartheid and discrimination in Alabama, no matter what personal price I had to pay for doing so. I do not have words to describe the calm that came over Mr. Rhodes after he heard my words. He was at peace, and so was I. This was the last time I saw Mr. Rhodes alive. We left each other physically that beautiful day, but we bonded spiritually, forever. For 48 years, I have been true to my word to Mr. Rhodes. Whether I was fighting with a group of civil rights activists, or fighting alone, I always carried on the fight to liberate blacks in Alabama economically, socially, and politically. And, I am not through fighting yet. Alabama's appellate courts were all-white when I started my legal career in 1973, and they are all-white now. My spirit will not rest until I have dismantled this all-white bastion of judicial power in the state. In my heart, I know that I am not fighting this battle alone. Mr. Rhodes and I are battling it together. He is in Heaven and I am imprisoned, but we are still fighting as hard as we can to include blacks in the forward-progress of the America we dreamed of on that fateful day in May of 1973 . To the so-called black "leaders" in Birmingham, I say this: My conscience will not let me to look away and allow the present-day discriminatory effects of the "Redeemer" constitution of 1875 go on forever. "White supremacy" in the state's appellate court system is wrong and it must end now.

By Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on December 19, 2021 It's Christmas time, again. This is also a time for giving to the ones we love. As for me, I think unconditional love is the only gift that really matters. As we wrap up 2021 and move into 2022, I realize how fortunate I am. Many people judge the Christmas holiday season by how many material gifts they receive. I judge it by how much love I have received from my family, loved ones, true friends, and loyal supporters. And, I have always tried to give more love than I received. With this view in mind, 2021 has been an exceptionally good year for me. I learned a very long time ago that material things, no matter how nice they are, cannot love you. They can entertain you for awhile and, in some cases, make you feel comfortable and special. Fortunately, I was exposed to material things very early in life and I quickly realized how limited their value was in the overall quality of our lives. However, I have enjoyed an abundance of unconditional love from family members, loved ones, friends, and supporters all of my life. My siblings and I grew up in a very loving two-parent home. For most of my childhood, we lived in the president's mansion on college campuses. While these homes were very nice, it was the cocoon of parental and sibling love that we treasured the most. Because of the unconditional love showered upon me by my parents and five siblings while growing up, I never felt alone, diminished, abandoned, or insecure in any way. I always knew that what our family had was very special. Their love was a gift that could not be purchased or packaged. It was earned through our respectful attitudes and appreciative words and deeds over a lifetime. Our circle of love was rock solid and my real-life heroes lived in our home. A world of additional blessings has come my way since August of 2019. I have made some new, solid, and wonderful friendships with great men and women in Talladega, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, and Anthony, New Mexico. These friendships evolved around a mutual respect for humanity, rather than the accumulation of material things. This kind of friendship has always been the most satisfying for me. Small-minded people talk about other people. Self-absorbed people talk about their material possessions. Truly great people talk about big ideas and how to bring them to life. I have always been attracted to truly great people. A Circle of Love Formed by Men and Women I Admire and Respect My entire 73 years on earth have been filled with personal interactions in very private settings with truly great men and women. I have also been fortunate enough to be loved by a wide array of courageous and trailblazing men and women of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of these men and women include: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ms. Coretta Scott King; Ms. Rosa Parks; Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and Ms. Juanita Abernathy; Rev. S.A. Owen (Memphis); Ms. Johnnie M. Carr and Mr. Arlam Carr, Jr. (Montgomery, Alabama); Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth; Dr. E.D. Nixon; Colonel Paul D. Lehman, Jr., USAF (Montgomery and Los Angeles); Mr. Harry Belafonte; Colonel Stone Johnson, Mr. Simmie Lavender, and Mr. Ben Green (Birmingham, Alabama); Mr. Roy Wilkins (former Executive Director of the NAACP in New York City); Ms. Maggie Bozeman and Ms. Julia Wilder (Pickens County, Alabama); Mayor Maynard Jackson (Atlanta); Mayor Marion Barry (Washington, DC); Mr. Julian Bond; Dr. Benjamin Hooks (Memphis); Ambassador Andrew Young (Atlanta); Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr. (Birmingham); Dr. Joe L. Reed (the most courageous civil rights leader in the history of Alabama); Mr. Ramus Rhodes (the brilliant Farrah Hall "janitor" at the University of Alabama's law school in the 1970s); Colonel Floyd Mann (Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, Alabama); Dr. Maya Angelou; Dr. Benjamin Mayes (Atlanta); Dr. Frederick Humphries (Nashville and Tallahassee, Florida); Congressman Adam Clayton Powell (New York City); Congressman Harold Ford, Sr. (Memphis); State Senator John Ford (Memphis); Attorneys Fred D. Gray, J.L. Chesnutt (the greatest trial lawyer in America), Solomon S. Seay, and Charles D. Langford (Montgomery, Selma, and Tuskegee, Alabama); State Senator Michael Figures (Mobile, Alabama); Major Sidney Williams (Montgomery Police Department); Mr. Larry Fluker and Mr. Jerome Gray (Evergreen, Alabama); Judge Eddie Hardaway (Demopolis, Alabama); Commissioner Albert Turner (Perry County, Alabama); Mr. Charles L. Carter (Muscle Shoals and Union Springs, Alabama); Mr. Harvest Mitchell (Florence, Alabama); Mr. McKinley Bailey (Huntsville, Alabama); Mr. Anthony Butler (Choctaw County, Alabama); U.S. District Court Judges U.W. Clemon (Birmingham) and Myron Thompson (Montgomery); Mr. Joseph L. Cole (Gadsden, Alabama and Atlanta); Rev. Jessie Jackson; Alabama Supreme Court Justice Oscar Adams and Ms. Ann Marie Adams; District Attorney/Alabama Attorney General Jimmy Evans (Montgomery); Ms. Earnestine Bruce (Montgomery); Ms. Karen Ballard; Judge William Cousins (Chicago); Soul Train founder and executive producer Don Cornelius (Chicago and Los Angeles); Mr. Eric Ramsey (Los Angeles); Mayor Andrew Hayden (Uniontown, Alabama); Mr. Clarence Norris (the last of the "Scottsboro Boys"); Correspondent Ed Bradley and producer Robert Anderson ("60 Minutes," New York City); Attorney Milton Davis (Tuskegee and Montgomery); Ms. Ida Mae Whitehurst (the mother of Bernard Whitehurst; Ms. Elizabeth Williams (Detroit); Mr. Walker Alexander (Attalla, Alabama); Ms. Inez Glass and Mr. Daniel Glass (Talladega, Alabama); Mr. Adrian Taylor (St. Louis, Missouri and Las Vegas); Mr. Nathan Chapman (Baltimore); Attorneys Billy Carter and Karen Neal (Montgomery); Attorney Connie Parsons (Birmingham); Mr. Daryl Harms; Ms. Kimberly Perkins (Birmingham); Ms. Ann Bolden (Atlanta); Mr. Edmond Watters; Mr. Richard M. Scrushy (Birmingham and Texas); Mr. Dale "Chip" Rosenbloom (Los Angeles); Mr. John Hudson, III (Chicago); Ms. Jessica Findley (Birmingham); Mr. Johann Jordan (Orangeburg, South Carolina); Mr. Eugene "Rock" Newman (Washington, DC); Mr. Ralph D. Malone (Huntsville, Alabama); Attorney David Minkin (Atlanta); Dr. Milton Padgett, MD (Huntsville); Mr. Olayinka Arowolo (Windhoek, Namibia); Multimedia entertainment producers Alvin Waters and Calvin Waters, and musician Peabo Bryson (Atlanta); Attorney Jonathan Rose (Washington, DC); Mr. Charlie Russell (Denver); Mr. Eric Urbani (San Francisco); Mr. Delford Smith (McMinnville, Oregon); Mr. Harry Cullinan (Auburn University); Mr. John Carter (Atlanta); Dr. Saadiq El-Amin, MD, PhD (Atlanta); Delos H. Yancey, Jr., Delos H. Yancey, III, and Ann Rogers (Rome, Georgia); Mr. George Washington Dunn, Jr. (Atlanta); Ms. Zakiyya Madden (Louisville, Kentucky; Dr. Barbara Joy Jones, MD (Atlanta); and Mr. Doyal Reed (Birmingham). I have tremendous admiration and respect for the courage and monumental achievements of these great men and women. I am very blessed to have been loved by all of them. Each one of these men and women enriched my life in profound ways. What is more, the world is a much better place because these unselfish men and women knew how to embrace and love humanity in the face of great adversity. I salute them all. Continuing My Journey in 2022 The New Year promises a continuation of my exciting journey along the road to personal enlightenment and professional growth. I am particularly excited about the opportunity to work with a new California-based Super PAC (in formation) that will focus on the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The Super PAC expects to register, educate, and turn out at least two million new Independent voters in six swing states during the November of 2024 general election. The Super PAC also plans to raise and spend an estimated $10 to $20 million to advance its political objectives in the 2024 presidential race. I am also excited about my future, as I have developed new multicultural alliances in the past few years. Working with my new alliance partners, I look forward to continuing my climb up the mountain of international business and world affairs. To all of the men, women, and children in my circle of love, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I will see you on the other side of midnight in 2022.

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on October 24, 2021 Early in my criminal case, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Peeples and his band of federal prosecutors in Birmingham, Alabama asked the federal court to seal all records and court orders regarding this particular matter. I strenuously objected to this request. The magistrate assigned to my case, who was a former federal prosecutor in Birmingham, agreed with Peeples and held a closed-door hearing on this matter. Following the hearing, the magistrate granted the order requested by Peeples. I appealed this order to my trial judge. Following another closed-door hearing, my trial judge also agreed to do what Peeples and his prosecutors wanted. I complied with the trial court's order. I had no choice. The order required me to do something that has never been done in the history of American jurisprudence. I did not appeal this order because I did not want to take a chance that the ultra-conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals would uphold it, thereby making bad law that would apply to all similarly situated persons in all of the southern states covered by the Court of Appeals. Throughout the remainder of the trial court proceedings, I was not allowed to mention what was done to me behind closed doors. This matter is now buried deep inside the court records in my case. Until these court records are unsealed, I am not at liberty to publicly discuss the subject-matter contained in the closed-door proceedings on this motion. Likewise, I was not allowed to mention this court action during my trial. At the conclusion of my trial, I asked the trial judge to unseal these records so the public could see what was done to me behind closed doors. The judge told me to work it out with the prosecution team. This meant I needed Lloyd Peeples' consent to unseal these records. Of course, Peeples never gave me his consent. The trial judge, who has the power to unseal these records on her own, never did so. Shocking the Conscience of Americans Based upon my research, what was done to me behind closed doors on this matter has never been done to any criminal defendant in American history. Even though the trial court proceedings in my case have been over for more than two years, this matter remains sealed to this day. If and when the court filings pertaining to this motion are unsealed, they will shock the conscious of most conservative, moderate, and progressive Americans. They will also infuriate those Americans who believe in the exercise of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I would have expected this kind of government action in Afghanistan, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or some other totalitarian nation. I never thought it could happen in America. But, it happened in America -- in Alabama. It happened in the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cradle of the Confederacy." We must remember that Alabama has always led the nation in suppressing the constitutional rights of its citizens. This is particularly true for women and people of color who have had to climb within the protections of the U.S. Constitution one case at a time. Alabama is also the state that gave rise to the famous 1964 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case named New York Times v. Sullivan. The New York Times case overturned state court orders that sought to suppress the First Amendment's freedom of the press for news organizations and freedom of speech for civil rights activists. Lloyd Peeples Led the Assault on This Constitutional Right Lloyd Peeples signed his name to the prosecution team's controversial and unprecedented motion in my case. Peeples' record on racial matters is well-documented. This record was abysmal when Peeples ran his father's corrugated box business. Likewise, it was abysmal when Peeples was selling pizza by the slice at a failed pizza restaurant he owned and operated in Homewood, Alabama prior to taking the top assistant prosecutor's job in the U.S. Attorney's office in 2017. Peeples' views on the matter presented in his sealed motion are as abysmal and outside the realm of mainstream thought as his views on racial matters. What is more, the sealed motion demonstrates Peeples' grandiose hypocrisy on this subject. We must remember that Peeples was once an editor of the student newspaper where he attended college. During his tenure as a newspaper editor at Washington and Lee University, Peeples liberally exercised his First Amendment right to openly oppose increased college admissions for women and minorities at the university. It should be noted that Peeples chose to attend a university in Lexington, Virginia that is named after Confederate Civil War general Robert E. Lee. On September 8, 2021, Gen. Lee's statue was removed from its public display in Richmond, Virginia, cut into pieces, and hauled away because it paid tribute to a self-professed, notorious racist who committed treason against the United States. After Gen. Lee lost the Civil War to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, he served as president of Washington and Lee for the next five years. Peeples Does Not Want this Motion to See the Light of Day By any objective standard, the justification asserted by Peeples for requesting the magistrate and trial judge to undertake the unprecedented action that is contained in the court orders under seal was flimsy, speculative, and misguided, at best. Yet, it was warmly received by the magistrate and trial judge. Prior to making the motion, the prosecution team had already used its trusted network of unpaid collaborating surrogates to obtain a strategic advantage in the case. These surrogates engaged in the very activity that was the subject of the closed-door hearings. The government's frequent use of this trusted network of local collaborators has been (a) documented in Congressional reports and critically acclaimed books on this subject and (b) confirmed by former federal prosecutors. The matter presented in the motion likely remains sealed today because President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) would be totally embarrassed and humiliated by the prosecution team's motion and the court rulings on this motion. Biden's DOJ has already reined in unbridled prosecutorial actions in this zone of activity in other cases. The closed-door proceedings and court orders in my case effectively shield a modern-day throwback to the DOJ's old-school COINTELPRO tactics from the 1950s and 1960s. What is more, these tactics happened in the same federal judicial district in Alabama where this kind of conduct thrived among judges, federal prosecutors, and local surrogates during the formal COINTELPRO era. Closed-Door Court Proceedings Rarely Lead to the Fair Administration of Justice I have always opposed closed-door court proceedings. They rarely lead to the fair administration of justice. The potential for preferential treatment for one party and the judicial abuse of an opposing party runs high in closed-door proceedings. This is exactly what happened in my case, twice. The local media in Alabama will not likely ask the court to unseal the motion and court orders referenced in this article because they were complicit with federal prosecutors in the matters addressed in the motion. This is particularly true with respect to AL.com's reporters and columnists, who often serve as unofficial COINTELPRO surrogates for federal prosecutors in Birmingham. The one good thing about the passage of time is that it tends to unlock the secrets that are hidden behind closed doors. In time, the sun will shine brightly on what happened to me behind closed doors in the Birmingham federal courthouse. When this event occurs, the impact from the shockwaves of what is disclosed will be national in scope and will be felt by everybody who values the First Amendment. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

By Claire Larson, guest contributor ©Copyrighted and Published on September 15, 2019 The prescription drug, OxyContin, has left many dead or addicted in its wake. Over 17,000 people died from a prescription opioid overdose in 2017. That number has risen substantially since 1999 when 3,400 people succumbed to an opioid overdose just three short years after OxyContin was introduced to the market. The number of deaths continues to climb. OxyContin was originally sold under several falsehoods. The manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, initially claimed the “timed-release” medication would last 12 hours and was less addictive than other similar pain medications. Both statements turned out to be false. Many patients were finding the drug was wearing off after five or six hours and some were becoming addicted after just one dose. This addiction led to patients seeking out other drugs when prescription OxyContin could no longer be obtained from their doctor. Some sources say that opioids were the gateway drug for approximately 90% of all heroin addicts. It’s not a big surprise the manufacturers of OxyContin are in the middle of settlement negotiations with numerous parties to prevent a full-fledged civil trial. OxyContin had its beginnings in the prescription drug MS Contin – a powerful opioid used to dull the pain caused by cancer. It was set to lose its patent in 1990 and Purdue needed to find a way to keep generating profits. They formulated a plan to slightly change the medication and market it to a significantly larger group of patients under the guise of the drug being an effective, longer-lasting (12 hr) pain killer for a myriad of conditions – not just cancer. Current prescription pain killers provided relief for only 6 hours. Purdue submitted an application for approval to the FDA using research they knew to be false. They were aware that many patients were not obtaining anywhere close to 12 hours of pain relief. The FDA approved the drug using that faulty research and Purdue’s marketing plan centered around those falsehoods. Doctors soon became aware that many times the drug was wearing off after six hours. This led them to begin prescribing with the instructions to take every six to eight hours. When Purdue discovered this, they demanded this practice end and suggested that the dose be increased instead. After all, the longer time period between doses was one of the drug’s major selling points. This was done without appropriate research to back up the practice. Typically, a higher dose does not generate an increased relief period; it just further decreases the pain response during the time the drug is active AND increases the potential for dependency. To this day, the drug is still marketed with the faulty information to take once every 12 hours. Since losing the Republican run-off for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat to an accused pedophile, Luther Strange has been involved in some interesting negotiations. Acting as a lawyer for the Sackler family who owns Purdue Pharma, it appears he’s been encouraging state attorney generals to agree to the terms of a settlement that may not be in the best interests of its victims. While all of this illegal marketing of OxyContin has been going on, the Sackler family has been quietly transferring funds out of the US. At the present time, authorities have uncovered approximately $1 Billion in wire transfers leaving the US for areas such as Switzerland. It doesn’t appear that it is known exactly what assets the Sackler family possesses as a good portion of them are in shell companies or foreign accounts. Can an appropriate settlement really be negotiated when no one seems to know where the assets are? One wonders what type of government resources will be directed at the Sacklers to uncover any other funds that were transferred outside the US and whether any other crimes were committed. In an attempt to divert attention from the transfers, Mortimer Sackler said "This is a cynical attempt by a hostile AG's office to generate defamatory headlines to try to torpedo a mutually beneficial settlement that is supported by so many other states and would result in billions of dollars going to communities and individuals across the country that need help." In a further attempt to thwart officials from uncovering any other assets that may have been diverted, the Sackler defendants are endeavoring to quash subpoenas and limit discovery. One of the subpoenas already served, generated the information showing the Sackler family has been setting up shell corporations and trusts. These shell corporations and trusts have the effect of shielding and hiding profits obtained from the sale of OxyContin. One might also suspect there may have been some felony wire fraud and conspiracy taking place in addition to the misdemeanor charge of “misbranding” three of Purdue Pharma’s executives pled guilty to in 2006. Strangely enough, the white male Purdue Pharma owners were never charged and no member of the Sackler family nor its company executives have seen the inside of a jail cell. This is extremely interesting considering the drug, marketed on falsehoods, has generated billions in profit for the owners and left so many people dead or addicted in its wake. Coincidentally enough, Strange spoke against legalizing medical marijuana during the passage of Leni’s Law in 2016. He was also quoted in the Decatur Daily during the 2017 Alabama Senate race speaking against the approval of medical Cannabis, "Like any medical procedure or pharmaceutical, there is a scientific research process to go through in order to ensure that medical treatments are safe and do not cause more harm than good," Strange said. "As state attorney general, I saw firsthand the negative impact that abuse of even legal drugs such as opioids have on our communities." It’s too bad he seems to have forgotten this in his latest role. In states where medical marijuana has been approved, opioid use has dropped substantially. One has to wonder if the fact he is beholden to the Sacklers explains his stance on medical Cannabis.… 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 – and, since we are critically-thinking human beings, these views are always subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on September 30, 2021 As September 2021 draws to an end, Americans can finally breath a sigh of relief that the 16,000 migrants camped out under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas have been cleared out. The overwhelming majority of these migrants were from the small Caribbean Island nation of Haiti. The Haitian migrants left their country a long time ago and had been living in Chile, Guatemala, and other countries in the Central and South America. They made their way to Del Rio by traveling from Haiti to Chile, Guatemala, and other countries in Central America first. From there, they traveled to Acuna, Mexico, where they crossed the Rio Grande into Del Rio, Texas. When the migrants arrived at Del Rio, it was a nightmare experience for American Border Patrol agents, who were totally unprepared for this surge of migrants. The migrants had to be detained, fed, housed, and processed. Eventually all but 3,000 of these migrants were deported to Haiti and their other countries of origin. The U.S. is currently processing the applications for entry into America for about 3,000 Haitian migrants who were not deported. Published videos of Border Patrol agents chasing migrants of color on horseback sparked outrage in the Biden White House and around America. The videos evoked images straight out of America's treatment of blacks during the slavery era. So, what does America owe to these Haitian migrants, and why? America Joined European Nations in Punishing Haiti for over 200 Years for a Successful Haitian Slave Revolt Against Their French Colonizer/Slave Owners On January 1, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a native Haitian, declared the independence of Haiti from France colonization. This proclamation brought to an end the only successful slave revolution in history and transformed the French colony into the second independent state in the Western Hemisphere behind the United States (which declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776). With this act, Haiti arose as a symbol of humanity, liberty, and dignity for peoples of African descent, and it changed the course of history. The momentousness of the Haitian revolution was matched only by the speed and efficacy with which it was marginalized and "forgotten" by whites in the Western World. The exceptional nature of the revolution in a slaveholding world was surpassed only by the interest the colonial powers of Europe and the Americas had in suppressing the memory of it from public discourse, written and oral history, and news accounts following the declaration of Haiti's independence. As migrants of all colors flowed into North America from the 1790s into the early nineteenth century, the fear engendered in whites by a successful black slave revolution so close to its shores was remembered for generations in the United States. This is particularly true in the Antebellum South where it was held up as evidence that "race war would be the only result of the universal emancipation of the slaves." From 1804 through 1934, the United States, Spain, Great Britain, and France carried out a sustained campaign of commercial and political interference with the internal affairs of Haiti. During this period, these four foreign powers raped and pillaged Haiti's natural resources and financial assets and exploited its national economy. American presidents who owned slaves of African descent were extremely hostile in their policies toward Haiti. President Thomas Jefferson actually preferred a Napoleonic colony to a free black republic in the Caribbean. Jefferson never extended diplomatic recognition to Haiti for fear that its ambassador to the United States would inflame American slaves "by exhibiting in his own person an example of a successful revolt." After the U.S. Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted into law, which made it easy for whites to kidnap and sell free blacks into slavery, thousands of free African-Americans in the Northern states fled to Canada, Mexico, and Haiti for their own safety. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the Dred Scott case that, "A Negro had no rights that a white man was bound to respect." In response to this decision, an exodus of blacks in America, both runaway slaves and free persons of color, made their way to Haiti as quickly as they could. In 1915, under pressure from First National Bank of New York, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the U.S. Army to invade Haiti. The Army seized Haiti's national Capitol and took all of the gold from the country's treasury. It also wrecked Haiti's national economy. After 111 years of independence, Haitians no longer had a voice in the administration of their national affairs. America ruled the country with an iron fist. The U.S. Army's armed occupation of Haiti ended on August 21, 1934. In 1931, Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler summed up our financial intervention in Haiti this way: "I helped make Haiti .... a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in .... Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints." On February 28, 2004, some 200 years after Haiti declared its independence, French, Canadian, and U.S. forces backed an armed insurgency against Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Described as a "humanitarian intervention," the armed overthrow of Aristide is one more example of the triumph of neo-colonialism over the political choice of a majority of the Haitian people. Were the Migrants at Del Rio the Descendants of Blacks Who Fled America to Avoid Enslavement? Many of the Haitians at Del Rio, Texas are descendants of the American blacks who were forced to flee America to avoid captivity and enslavement by slavers in the 1800s. In light of this fact, what obligations does America have to these migrants? Why is America not properly welcoming the descendants of slavery-era black refugees back home to American soil? Chasing these migrants with Border patrol agents on horseback is exactly what their ancestors fled from; it is not how the descendants of these refugees should be welcomed back home in 2021. When is America going to return the gold the U.S. stole from Haiti's national treasury, along with all accrued interest, theft penalties, and a reasonable payment for Haiti's loss of the use of this gold for 106 years? What responsibility do the Wall Street banks that General Smedley empowered have with respect to the U.S.'s financial intervention in Haiti? When will they pay up the money they owe to the Haitian government? This restitution is similar in nature to what was required of Swiss banks when they were forced to return cash, valuable paintings, and expensive jewelry to the rightful Jewish owners. German soldiers stole these valuables from Jewish victims and hid them in the vaults of these banks during World War II. Finally, when will one of our living U.S. Presidents tell America the full truth about our nation's 217 years of ugly, racist, and embarrassing mistreatment of Haiti's government and its people? All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

By: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and Published on May 6, 2021 I settled into my new prison environment at FCI LaTuna near El Paso, Texas fairly smoothly after my arrival here on March 5, 2021. The correctional facility was built in 1932 and its Spanish-mission style architecture was designed to reflect the Southwestern environment it is a part of. The surrounding mountains are scenic and breathtaking. The weather is wonderful. I have made a host of great friendships at LaTuna. I love networking within the prison's multicultural population of staff members and inmates. My friendships mirror a United Nations gathering of inmates of Asian, Anglo-Saxon, African, Native American, Caribbean, European, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, and Latin American descent. Because of my unique knowledge, skills, and abilities in law and business, I became known fairly quickly within the inmate population and respected on a universal basis. I am also growing in my knowledge of diverse cultures and history. This is particularly true with respect to America's ugly and cruel mistreatment of Native Americans since 1612. I entered the federal prison system on August 28, 2019 at FCI Talladega in Alabama. It did not take me long to discover that Talladega was a cesspool of public corruption. The prison was run like a ghetto operation by Warden Cheron Y. Nash, an incompetent prison executive who is the poster child for affirmative action gone wrong. Nash's bipolar personality and exaggerated sense of self-importance ran off the few competent staff members who worked at the prison. Furthermore, Nash's incompetence allowed Mack Smith and Jimmy Monk (both of whom were elderly white inmates and sick with COVID-like symptoms) to die within 8 months of each other in 2020 while they were in her custody and control at Talladega. Nash's dislike for white staff members and inmates was well-known and flagrant. In contrast, FCI LaTuna operates in a very professional manner. The multicultural staff at LaTuna consistently addresses me as "Mr. Watkins" and not "Watkins" or "Inmate", as was the case in Talladega. Every issue I have raised with the staff at LaTuna has been addressed and resolved in the most professional manner and on a prompt basis. LaTuna's Health Services Department operates at a level of professionalism and medical expertise that equals or exceeds the standard of care provided by private healthcare providers. My recent cardio and blood pressure examinations by Advance Practice Provider H. Guaderrama were as thorough and educational as any session I have ever had with a medical provider. Additionally, Dr. Clark examined my eyes last month and handled my corrective vision needs. Dr. Clark is the best optometrist I have ever encountered. Dr. Clark is in a class of excellence by himself. Also, Lt. Garza, a member of the prison's nursing staff, is the "best of the best" I have experienced in clinical nursing care. Given that the Watkins family is filled with pioneering physicians who hold simultaneously conferred MD and PhD degrees, I know high quality health care when I experience it. My Prison Job I work in the prison's dining hall, where I serve food, clean tables, and mop floors five days per week. My pay is $5.25 per month. I may earn a pay raise soon. Despite the demeaning pay wage, I love my job. I have the best work supervisors anyone could want on a job. All of them address me as "Sir" or "Mr. Watkins," and they treat my co-workers and me with the utmost respect. I gladly give them the full measure of my respect and dedicated service because they have earned it with the unwavering respect they give to all inmates. I take pride in discharging my duties in the kitchen. My service area is always spotless and the food I serve is always provided in a courteous manner. I learned my dining hall job skills from my father, Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr., while he was president of Alabama State University. My earliest summer job after father became president in 1962 was working in the University's dining hall as a young teenager. There, I served food to students, cleaned the dining tables, and mopped the floors before and after the lunch and dinner meals were served. This standard of excellence in the dining hall job was established by my father who personally showed me how to serve the food in a courteous manner, how to clean tables as though I was eating from them, and how to mop the dining hall floors before and after each meal to ensure that they were spotless. To the amazement of my supervisors, I render this standard of excellence in LaTuna's dining hall today, regardless of the pay and with profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve my fellow inmates in a dignified manner. My parents and grandparents would always say, "There is nobility in all work. Whatever work assignment is assigned to a Watkins family member, perform it in a way that sets the standard of excellence in the discharge of the assigned duties." Divine Intervention Corrupt FCI Talladega officials sent me to LaTuna, which is 1,500 miles away from my home, to punish me for exposing their widespread public corruption and RICO activities. They wanted to hurt me. Fortunately, God intervened and made my stay at LaTuna a fascinating cultural enrichment experience. The network of goodwill I have established at LaTuna is invaluable. It will benefit my personal, professional, and political growth long after I leave the confines of this prison. In this regard, I am blessed. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

by: Donald V. Watkins Copyrighted and published on September 16, 2021 Some of my old colleagues have asked me why I continue to fight so hard against Alabama's all-white appellate court system. All of the members of the Alabama Supreme Court, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals are white in a state with a 26.8% black population. The Alabama Courts of Criminal and Civil Appeals have never had a black member. The Alabama Supreme Court has not had a black member in over two decades. These colleagues further pointed out that nearly all of the state's black elected officials have succumbed to the reality that blacks in Alabama will not be represented on the state's appellate courts. The state's mainstream media and their editorial directors have no problem with this reality, either. They have never criticized the racial make-up of these all-white courts. Likewise, the Alabama Bar Association has been as quiet as a "church mouse" on this subject. Even the federal court judges in Alabama appear to be at peace with this sorry state of judicial affairs. I seem to be the only public figure in Alabama who is raising hell publicly about the state's all-white appellate courts. Some black leaders in the state suggest that I leave this subject alone and join them in the slavery era mantra of "going along to get along." This, I cannot do. I will not dishonor the blood, sweat and tears of my ancestors and all of the civil rights activists in Alabama and around the nation who bled and died for our right to have courts that included us within their membership ranks. I realize that Alabama is, and always has been, the citadel of oppressive white political power in America. After all, Alabama is the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cradle of the Confederacy." Today, Alabama serves as a shining example to the nation on how to attain, maintain, and perpetuate an all-white appellate court system and all-white elected constitutional officers in a state with a 26.8% black population. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee would be extremely proud of this dubious accomplishment in the modern era. On the flip side, Alabama has shown the nation just how impotent many black elected officials and civil rights organizations in the state and nation really are. They appear to have willingly accepted an all-white appellate court system, without protest or condemnation. Their reluctance to pressure the Biden administration's Justice Department to step in and remedy this unbelievably sad situation is inexcusable. These elected officials, who include Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL), should be advancing and protecting the political interests of Alabama's black community rather than kow-towing to the white special interest groups that want to preserve the quo on the state's appellate court bench. To be clear, I do not believe in all-white public bodies, all-white court systems, a system of all-white elected constitutional officers, and/or all-white corporate boards in a state that is 26.8% black. This "all-white" political paradigm is un-American. Many White Alabamians View Me as a "Trouble-Maker" Understandably, many whites and a few Uncle Toms in Alabama view me as a "trouble-maker" because I believe African-Americans in the 21st century are entitled to have elected members sitting on all three of the state's appellate courts. While they have a right to criticize me and my civil rights agenda, I have a right to criticize them, as well. I have been warned by my colleagues that the white judges on the appellate bench in Alabama are going to "F--- me up" for stirring up controversy on this subject. Maybe so. However, if this is the price I must pay for black Alabamians to achieve the goal of racially diversity on the Alabama Supreme Court, Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and Alabama Court of Civil Appeals in the 21st century, then so be it. One thing is for sure -- I do not intend to pass the battle to integrate Alabama's all-white appellate courts down to my children and their children for them to fight at a later date. I would be less than a man if I did so. I have too much respect for myself, my children, my grandchildren, and my community to engage in this kind of political cowardice. My colleagues often remind me about the way in which the federal court in Birmingham railroaded me during my 2019 criminal trial, and the real reason why they imprisoned me. Indeed, I was railroaded and, yes, I am imprisoned as a show of "white might" in Birmingham. But, the criminal justice system's mistreatment of me is no excuse for allowing Alabama's white political and judicial power players to rob the state's 26.8% of black population of their constitutional right to elect candidates of their choice to the state's appellate courts. Sometimes Prison Can Be a Badge of Honor While it is true that I have been incarcerated in federal prison for slightly more than 2 years, we must all remember that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, South African President Nelson Mandela, and other notable civil rights activists spent far more time in jail than me. Dr. King and Mr. Mandela were also indicted on trumped up felony charges and railroaded in court just because they fought against engrained and widespread racial segregation when it was not popular to do so. I experienced the same fate. Nelson Mandela was a great trial lawyer and represented himself during his criminal trial, just like I did. Mr. Mandela was railroaded during his trial, just like me. Mr. Mandela was convicted of the charges against him and spent 27 years in prison, with most of this time spent in solitary confinement. In my case, Birmingham federal prosecutor Lloyd Peeples, who never saw an all-white power structure in Alabama that he did not like, tried to send me to prison for nearly 18 years for engaging in the same business transactions that unbiased and considerably more qualified New Jersey-based federal prosecutors reviewed first and determined to be in compliance with all applicable federal laws. Even though Peeples is still running amok in the Birmingham U.S. Attorney's office, this is no reason for Alabamians of interracial goodwill to act like cowards who are afraid to question the all-white status of the state's appellate courts. Changing the Status Quo I do not think I am the real problem here. In fact, I view myself as part of the solution to slowing down Alabama's growing and hardening white political power movement. For the most part, this movement has beaten down the state's black elected officials into Jim Crow-era submission. They have surrendered their manhood and womanhood to a mostly-male and all-white political oligarchy. I have not sold out my people, and I never will. Even while imprisoned, I am still "unbought and unbossed." Furthermore, I realize that "everybody who is your color is not your kind." As long as I have a breath of life left in my body, I will fight hard to dismantle the Jim Crow-era election scheme that has produced Alabama's three all-white appellate courts. Like Dr. King, Rev. Abernathy, Rev. Shuttlesworth, Mr. Mandela, and the others, I can continue to carry on this fight from prison. Finally, I do not view my imprisonment as a badge of shame. Instead, I view it as a bridge to freedom for an African-American community in Alabama that deserves so much more than what state and federal political leaders are giving them by tolerating Alabama's all-white appellate court system. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

Copyrighted and Published by: Donald V. Watkins September 12, 2021 A Commentary Twelve days after a Tuscaloosa County, Alabama Circuit Court judge awarded Joe Perkins and his company, Matrix, LLC, a highly questionable $1.5 million summary judgment against me and my law firm (Donald V. Watkins P.C.), Perkins, himself, was sued by Jeff Pitts, Matrix's longtime Chief Executive Officer and President. In a lawsuit filed in Duval County, Florida Circuit Court, Pitts alleged that Perkins: (a) tried to extort $4.5 million from him, (b) abused the judicial process in an Alabama case Perkins filed against Pitts on July 23, 2021, and (c) engaged in a pattern and practice of criminal racketeering activities. Perkins is known on the Alabama political scene as a long-time "dirty tricks" operator. On his website, Perkins promotes Matrix as a communications firm that provides political consultations and crisis management. Now, Perkins is involved in a public relations and legal crisis of his own -- one that has the potential to damage the corporate and professional reputations of his clients. For the first time, Pitts has publicly accused Perkins of operating an ongoing criminal enterprise and has detailed Perkins' racketeering activities in his court complaint. The ramifications of Pitts' RICO allegations are earthshaking for Perkins, Matrix and the company's clients. Perkins Began His Political Work With AEA Perkins started his career working for the Alabama Education Association (AEA) when Dr. Paul Hubbert led the organization and it was considered one of the most powerful political players in the state. Under Dr. Hubbert's leadership, AEA played political hardball and controlled the state's Democratic party, governor's office, legislature, and judicial system for decades. Over the years, Perkins grew Matrix into a political powerhouse. He expanded the firm's client base to include Alabama Power Company and other influential organizations and people on the political scene. By 2014, Perkins was Number 15 on Yellowhammer News' list of "Power and Influence" players in Alabama. The Mobile Press Register labeled Matrix as "the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-government secret agency." Perkins' Influence Within Alabama's Judicial System Many state court judges fear Perkins and often rule in his favor, or for the benefit of his clients, because Matrix can single-handedly fund an opposition candidate to run against any judge he disfavors. In Alabama, this form of "justice" is called "homecooking" the opposing litigant. On August 20, 2021, I was "homecooked" when Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Allen May awarded Perkins and Matrix a $1.5 million summary judgment (i.e., a judgment rendered without conducting the jury trial we requested). Judge May took this action even though the material facts relating to Perkins' defamation claims were disputed in a signed court Declaration that was filed in the case on April 17, 2018. On April 27, 2020, my attorney incorporated this Declaration into his written response in opposition to Perkins' motion for summary judgment. In order to rule in favor of Perkins and Matrix, Judge May had to: (a) deny my motion to transfer the case to Jefferson County Circuit Court, which was the proper venue for litigating this case, (b) ignore the fact that discovery had not been completed in the case, (c) disregard a separate Declaration signed by my attorney in which he described the logistical difficulties he encountered in trying to meet with me to mount our defense because I was incarcerated in a locked-down prison environment and he was prohibited from traveling in and out of Alabama by gubernatorial shelter-in-place mandates during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, (d) reconcile material facts that were disputed in the case, which is not permissible in a summary judgment proceeding, and (e) relieve Perkins and Matrix, who are "public figures" within the meaning of the 1964 landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny, from the extremely high burden of proof in defamation cases involving such figures. Judge May's actions in this regard are highly questionable and warrant further review by higher courts, particularly in light of the abuse of process, extortion, and RICO allegations detailed in Jeff Pitts' recent lawsuit. "Homecooking" is Legendary in Alabama's Judicial System Alabama is a trailblazer in the use of defamation lawsuits to chill the First Amendment freedom of speech of political progressives, independent journalists, and social justice activists. The famous New York Times v. Sullivan case arose from the concerted efforts of white Alabama elected officials and state court judges to use defamation lawsuits to quash local, state, and national support for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1960s civil rights movement. Not only did state officials indict Dr. King on two felony counts of perjury in connection with his state tax returns for 1956 and 1958, but they also joined local officials in naming Dr. King and four other prominent black ministers -- Reverends Ralph Abernathy, Solomon S. Seay, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, and Joseph Lowery -- as defendants in their defamation case against the New York Times. The state court trial judge "homecooked" the defendants during the trial. An all-white jury ruled against all of the defendants, who were ordered to pay a $500,000 judgment. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the jury verdict and judgment. The defendants thereafter appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 9, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling because the plaintiffs in the case, who were public officials, failed to prove that the defendants acted with "actual malice" in publishing the statements at issue or that the statements were published with a "reckless disregard of whether [they were] true or false." In subsequent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed this same high burden of proof on "public figures" like Joe Perkins and Matrix when they sue members of the press and public for defamation. Judge Allen May engaged in the same old fashion "homecooking" in Perkins' case that was viewed with disfavor in New York Times v. Sullivan. Additionally, Judge May closed his eyes to Alabama's reporter shield law by ignoring the part of my signed Declaration that stated, "[i]n researching, writing, and publishing the news articles and commentaries in question, I used confidential sources of information that are protected from disclosure under Alabama's reporter shield statute. I believed these sources were credible and reliable at the time each article was published. As a journalist, I never had any cause to believe that the statements published in the news articles and commentaries at issue were false in any respects." Judge May also ruled against my law firm, even though my firm has no Facebook page and did not write or endorse any of the editorial views expressed in my articles. The articles and commentaries involved in Perkins' lawsuit concerned important issues of public interest in Alabama and the nation, including: (a) cyber attacks on social media platforms, which I reported to Facebook and Wikipedia, (b) the smearing of University of Alabama honors student/reported rape victim Megan Rondini, her family, and me, (c) an attack ad against Megan Rondini and her family that was published in July 2017 in the Tuscaloosa News, (d) coordinated efforts by T.J. Bunn a/k/a "Sweet T" (the designated rape "suspect" in the 2017 Megan Rondini police report) and his Tuscaloosa allies to obstruct the truth and justice of what happened to her on the night of July 1, 2015, (e) how rape victims are re-victimized by allies of the rape suspect, and (f) other topics related to the rape report Megan Rondini made to Tuscaloosa County sheriff deputies during the early morning of July 2, 2015. Megan Rondini's rape case was originally reported in a June 22, 2017 BuzzFeed article titled, "A College Student Accused A Powerful Man of Rape. Then She Became a Suspect." The Road to Fair Justice in Alabama is Long and Difficult The cast of characters connected to the Perkins/Matrix lawsuit are all white and are all from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Judge Allen May is a longtime Tuscaloosa attorney who was appointed to the bench by former Governor Robert Bentley, who resides in Tuscaloosa. Bentley handpicked May for his judgeship eleven months before he was forced to resign his governorship and pleaded guilty to ethics violations. My exclusive series of investigative articles titled, "Forbidden Love" and "Executive Betrayal," which were first published in September 2015, eventually led to Bentley's resignation and criminal conviction. These articles exposed Bentley's widespread public corruption, highly questionable "dark-money" transactions, and torrid love affair with his married senior political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Mason is also a Tuscaloosa native, as is Joe Perkins. To correct the manifest injustice in Judge May's ruling, I must appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, just as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the other defendants did in the New York Times case. Alabama's Supreme Court was all-white in 1964 and is all-white today, even though the state has a 26.8% black population. Fortunately, my appeal will give me legal standing to challenge the all-white composition of the Alabama Supreme Court, whose nine members are chosen in a statewide "at-large" election scheme, as opposed to elections from judicial districts that are designed to achieve racial diversity on the Supreme Court. I will invite the Department of Justice (DOJ) to join me in this legal challenge. I expect the DOJ will also challenge the all-white membership that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and Alabama Court of Civil Appeals have had since their inception. Epilogue The appeal in Perkins' defamation case against me comes at a time when he is being accused of: (a) attempting to extort $4.5 million from Jeff Pitts, (b) abuse of the Alabama judicial process, and (c) engaging in various RICO activities. It seems that Perkins, who is the master of dirty tricks, has finally run out of tricks. It also appears that Perkins has exposed his clients to a law enforcement RICO investigation and provided me with a viable means to challenge the legally vulnerable all-white composition of the Alabama Supreme Court. Finally, I will also do my best to encourage the DOJ in Washington (and not its Birmingham office) to properly and thoroughly investigate all of the parties who aided and abetted Joe Perkins' dirty tricks operations in Alabama. The Birmingham U.S. Attorney's office should not participate in this investigation because this branch of the DOJ still employs federal prosecutor Lloyd Peeples, who is as soiled as Joe Perkins. All articles are shared on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to follow Donald Watkins, please click on these links and hit the follow button: https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins https://twitter.com/donaldvwatkins

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on March 24, 2018 On March 22, 2018, Matrix, LLC, a Montgomery, Alabama-based “dirty tricks” firm, and Joe Perkins, its chief executive, filed a bizarre court pleading that begged a Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court to sanction me because they have not been successful in serving me with a copy of the Summons and Complaint in their highly-publicized November 13, 2017 defamation case against my law firm and me. Matrix and Perkins attached a copy of my March 20, 2018 article titled, “Matrix Defamation Lawsuit Stalls”, and corporate registration records for my law firm (i.e., Donald V. Watkins, P.C.) to their court filing. Once again, Matrix and Perkins begged the Court to give them permission to serve me by publication in the local press. Their latest request is unusual because Matrix and Perkins know my corporate and personal address in Birmingham. Yet, they have repeatedly failed and refused to contact my office for the purpose of scheduling an appointment to serve the Summons and Complaint on me. On March 2, 2018, the Court denied the original Motion for Service by Publication filed by Matrix and Perkins. Since then, they have filed additional pleadings begging the Court to reconsider its March 2nd ruling. In their latest pleading, Matrix and Perkins asked the Court to sanction me even though I prevailed in opposing their original Motion for Service by Publication. They want the Court to impose a monetary fine upon me because I allegedly changed my corporate address after the February 26, 2018 court hearing on their Motion for Service by Publication in order to make it more difficult for them to serve me. A review of the corporate records Matrix and Perkins attached to their Motion for Sanctions fails to show any change in my corporate address after the February 26, 2018 hearing date. The only change reflected in the records occurred between the 2016 and 2017 annual corporate filings, and this change simply updated my corporate address. Remarkably, Matrix and Perkins have cited no case law or statute to support the relief they are requesting from the Court. Instead, they have resorted to begging as the basis for judicial relief. I have never seen anything like this situation in my 45-year legal career. Matrix seems to think its status as a “dirty tricks” operator, coupled with Joe Perkins' Number 15 ranking by Yellowhammer News as a “power and influence” player in Alabama, has lifted both of them above the law. They apparently believe the rules governing service of process for litigants in Alabama courts do not apply to them. We shall see. PHOTO: Matrix is run by Joe Perkins, who was ranked by Yellowhammer News as the Number 15 person of power and influence in Alabama.