DOWNLOADS: (114)

PLAYS: (1003)

Embed

A former Republican candidate for Agricultural commissioner in Alabama, who once waved a rifle in a campaign ad about "thugs and criminals," said on Thursday that he had been a victim of "conspiracies" after his second shoplifting arrest in six months.

According to the blog Yellow Hammer, Dale Peterson was arrested at a Sam's Club in Hoover on Wednesday for stealing cashews. Security personnel reportedly observed the former candidate eating the nuts without paying for them.

Hoover police spokesperson Capt. Jim Coker said that Peterson was arrested for third-degree theft of property and then released from the Hoover City Jail on $1,000 bond at 6:39 p.m. on Wednesday.

In October of last year, Peter had also been charged with third-degree theft of property after he pushed his cart containing paper towels and beer through a checkout line at Walmart without paying.

The Republican later told WAPI radio host Matt Murphy that he intended to pay for the items but left the checkout line when he could no longer resist going to the restroom.

"I had no intention of stealing," Peterson said. "The only intention when I crossed that line was going to pee."

Peterson took to Twitter late Thursday night to explain his side of the story.

"Sometimes there are coincidences. Sometime there are conspiracies. And sometimes there are just facts. #SomethingAintRight," he wrote.

Sometimes there are coincidences. Sometime there are conspiracies. And sometimes there are just facts. #SomethingAintRight

— Dale Peterson (@Dale_Peterson) March 28, 2013

How, exactly, did @yhpolitics know about my day & my handful of cashews before my wife did?

— Dale Peterson (@Dale_Peterson) March 28, 2013

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (156)

PLAYS: (1221)

Embed

The outraged hosts of Fox News' morning show on Wednesday said that public schools should just "take the religion as it is, celebrate it and move on" after one Alabama school canceled all Easter-themed events.

Last week, WHNT reported that the principal of Heritage Elementary School in Madison had instructed teachers not to have events linked to Christianity because one classroom could represent as many as six different religions.

Fox News host Gretchen Carlson on Wednesday argued that schools should be able to have the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs because "it doesn't have anything really to do with Easter."

"Some people say the bunny comes from paganism or is a symbol of fertility or something like that," she explained. "Have we just gotten so deep into this political correctness that we now just can't take the religion as it is, celebrate it and move on?"

"What better way to celebrate Christ's resurrection than to hide eggs in your living room?" co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed.

"I don't remember a bunny in the Bible story," co-host Steve Doocy chimed in. "I feel sorry for those kids though they can't say East... the e-word. Well, what if the teacher wants to talk about that big storm that's moving up. You know, the [nor'easter]?"

"What about Easter Island?" Carlson wondered. "If they study that in geography."

In an email, a viewer named Carol told the Fox & Friends hosts that she didn't understand why the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs were offensive because the words "Easter" and "bunny" do not appear in the Bible.

"Ah ha!" Kilmeade exclaimed. "So the Christians' nonsensical use of rabbits clears it for being used, using the rabbit!"

"This is how it becomes so ridiculous," Carlson conluded. "Let's just call it Easter and move on. Next week, you don't have to worry about it."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (132)

PLAYS: (611)

Embed

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) says constituents are telling him that high-capacity magazines should not be banned because people need "at least 50 rounds" to shoot down government drones.

During Thursday interview on Freedom 107 radio, host Jeff Akin asked the Texas Republican how he felt about using unnamed aerial drones for domestic law enforcement.

"It's pretty offensive to most of us," Gohmert opined. "Most of us think if you're going to use a drone and fly over our homes to analyze what's going on in our backyard -- not a lot of talk's been given -- but if you can fly over in the backyard, you can use all kinds of technology to see what's happening inside the home as well. And I know there's been a judge, and this former judge sure thinks you ought to have a warrant to do that kind of thing."

"But I had somebody last week in Washington from either Georgia or Alabama that was saying, 'Look, this goes back to we have got to have at least 50 rounds in our magazines because on average that's about how many it takes to bring down a drone.' I hope he was kidding, I don't know for sure."

"It is serious when the government decides, let's just watch every little thing Americans are doing," he added. "It's big brother taken to a whole new scale."

While they were on the topic of guns and the Second Amendment, Akin also wondered what bills liberals were planning "that could violate that amendment."

"They want the elimination of firearms in America," Gohmert declared. "Some of them have the idea that the Second Amendment was there to allow hunting, not true. You know, it is for our protection -- and the Founders' quotes make that very clear -- including against a government that could run amuck."

"You know, we've got some people who think that Sharia law ought to be the law of the land, forget the Constitution," he asserted. "But the guns are there, that Second Amendment is there to make sure all the rest of the amendments are followed."

Gohmert said that he understood the emotional nature of the issue because one of his friends had lost a husband due to gun violence, but he insisted that "we've got to let our head be what prevails."

"Sometime when you run in with your heart, you make bad laws."

(h/t: Think Progress)

DOWNLOADS: (137)

PLAYS: (819)

Embed

A Republican lawmaker in Alabama says that he wants to pursue a so-called "personhood" bill outlawing abortion rights for women because the Bible proves that a fetus "is life inside of a mother," but he's not sure if "aborted babies" are going to Heaven or Hell.

In a recent interview with the Times-Journal, state Sen. Shadrack McGill lamented that "you can be charged up to $250,000 for destroying an eagle egg, but you can destroy babies in the womb?"

McGill explained that his interpretation of Psalm 22 made it clear that life began at fertilization.

"Just based on the Scripture alone, the Psalm that talks about God knowing us before he placed us in our mother’s womb, is enough for me to know that that is a life inside of a mother," he said.

"So my question concerning aborted babies is, where do they go, heaven or hell?"

State Sen. Phil Williams (R), who has sponsored "personhood" bills during the last two legislative sessions, recently told The Anniston Star that he was reluctant to bring it up again.

Past bills had reportedly failed because many worried that they would have given rights to embyros created in fertility clinics, effectively banning in-vitro fertilization as well as some forms of contraception.

"I sympathize with the folks who have had to go the expensive route of the in-vitro process, and thank God for that knowledge that the doctors possess," McGill opined to the Times-Journal. "My understanding of that process is they fertilize 10 eggs in a petri dish. Basically they take three of the strongest and insert those into the womb, into the mother, and pray for the best."

"If the mother conceives, then what do you do with the seven remaining fertilized eggs?" he pointed out, adding that he had suggested that Williams reword the bill to include only "fertilization inside the mother’s womb."

"And I never had peace about that," McGill admitted. “That’s what we tried and that failed.”

The Republican lawmaker hoped that future legislation would force doctors to implant all fertilized eggs in the potential mother.

“That union between the sperm and the egg is where life begins, and maybe where God places his spirit inside that child, so to speak,” McGill insisted. “Therefore, I would hope that the legislation that we push in the future would state that all the eggs fertilized need to be placed in the mother’s womb.”

(h/t: Salon, RH Reality Check)

DOWNLOADS: (142)

PLAYS: (1140)

Embed

A 17-year-old student in Alabama was arrested last week for allegedly plotting to use dozens of homemade grenades to kill at least fellow six students and a teacher at Russell County High School.

Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor on Sunday said that Derek Shrout had been arrested after a teacher turned over a journal which indicated that his homemade grenades were just "a step or two away from being ready to explode," according to the Ledger-Enquirer.

A Friday search of Shrout's home turned up bomb-making materials, including dozens of tobacco cans and two large cans filled with pellets to be used as shrapnel. The two large cans were labeled "Fat Boy" and "Little Man," a reference to the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan during World War II.

Reports indicated that the 17-year-old student, who was part of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), had gotten mixed up with a white supremacist group after moving from Kansas to Fort Benning with his military family.

"At first through JROTC, he was confident, well-rounded, but as time went by, he was doing the whole white power thing," senior class president David Kelly told WTVM.

JROTC 1st Sgt. David White recalled that Shrout was often seen giving Nazi salutes while at school.

"In the hallway, at breakfast, at the lunch tables, after school where we have our bus parking lot, he'd have his big old group of friends and they'd go around doing the whole white power crazy stuff," White said.

"Why would you want to go to a school and blow it up? You know you're going to hit somebody else; you're not just going to, in particular, hit one person. You're going to injure more than one."

ABC News reported on Monday that Shrout's targets included five African-American students, one student who he believed was gay and one African-American teacher. Police believed that he learned to make explosives by searching the Internet.

For his part, Shrout told police that his journal was simply a work of fiction. He is being held in the Russell County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday on charges of attempted assault.

DOWNLOADS: (267)

PLAYS: (2854)

Embed

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on Tuesday faced tough questions from CNN host Soledad O'Brien for his plan to cut the food stamp program and "hurt people who need food," including 20 percent of his own constituents in Alabama.

Speaking to Sessions in an interview on CNN's Starting Point, O'Brien wondered if cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) should be on the table as part of the so-called fiscal cliff negotiations.

"Absolutely," Sessions insisted. "This month was a record increase in food stamp participation at a time when unemployment is declining."

"But there are people who say if you're doing cuts, you invariably hurt people who need food," O'Brien observed. "It's 61 percent of households in your state have children who are recipients of the food program that they're on."

"Soledad, this program has been growing out of control at an incredible rate and there are a lot of people receiving benefits who do not qualify and should not receive them," Sessions remarked. "No child, no person who needs food should be denied that food. Nobody proposes that. We are talking about an amendment that I offered that would have reduced and closed a loophole of $8 billion when we would spend $800 billion was opposed by saying it would help -- it would leave people hungry in America, but it would have only eliminated abuses in the program."

The CNN host, however, pointed out that the Alabama Republican had voted twice to grow the program and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities had determined that "SNAP has one of the most rigorous quality control systems of any public benefit program."

"People highlight the program as actually not having a lot of fraud," O'Brien explained. "Most people who are on it are not somehow working the system. They're just hungry people."

"That's not accurate," Sessions replied. "They're counting the computer system fraud error rate, but they're not out counting the real people who are filing false incomes or haven't reported changes in their income."

O'Brien continued to press Sessions, noting that "the problem could be in the reverse" because less than 70 percent of the people who qualify for food stamps were using the program.

"I guess when you are thinking of things to cut, people basically say, why are you trying to balance the budget on people who are making under $23,000 a year?" she asked. "I think that range, roughly, is the national average for what a family of four would get on food stamps. So, why not cut something else? There are other things that could be on the table before you pick a program that is feeding the nations poor children."

"I say all programs need to be examined in this government," Sessions shot back. "This government is wasting money every day. There is no doubt about that. And food stamps is a program that was totally exempted from any oversight when it has gone up four times in the last ten years in the amount we spend."

"Two of those times you voted for it, sir!" O'Brien interrupted. "Some people would say it's growing because people are hurting."

"I voted for the [agriculture] bill that had that in it, probably so," Sessions shrugged.

DOWNLOADS: (187)

PLAYS: (2026)

Embed

An Alabama man who started a petition calling for the White House to allow his state to peacefully secede from the Union says he's angry that the government forced him to close his topless car wash.

Disaffected Americans have created hundreds of “We the People” petitions on the White House website following President Barack Obama' re-election earlier this month. There have been petitions from each of the 50 states requesting permission to secede.

WKRG-TV managed to track down Derrick Belcher, the man responsible for the petition calling for Alabama's secession.

Gawker noted on Thursday that the 45-year-old trucking company manager was really just upset because his Euro Details topless car wash had been shut down by the government.

But according to Al.com, it was the Mobile city government -- not the federal government -- that arrested Belcher and charged him with obscenity after the state of Alabama enacted an anti-obscenity law in 1998.

"The government ripped my business away, and now they're choking America to death with rules and regulations," the secessionist explained.

"The American people are being mistreated by the federal government and there is absolutley no reason why we shouldn't end this treatment from the federal government," he told WKRG-TV. “And I guess there is a part of me that is angry because my government has mistreated me year after year after year, and I am fed up with it and I know there are several other people in this state and all across the country that are fed up with it as well.”

At the time of publication, Belcher's petition for secession had 29,124 signatures, meeting the 25,000 threshold needed for a White House response.

DOWNLOADS: (119)

PLAYS: (748)

Embed

The man who is likely to be Alabama’s next chief justice is warning that God will continue to punish America until same sex marriage and abortion are outlawed.

Speaking to around 100 anti-abortion supporters at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally on Saturday, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore said that "Satan is out to destroy everything that God has created."

"This is not just about religion, this is about law; the organic law of our country," the candidate explained. "When they pretended to give the right of choice to that woman, they took away the right of life to that child."

Moore added that Satan was also "convincing many in our land that they can form a marriage between the same gender. My, how God must be sad about this. He has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land, and until we reject those evils, we shall suffer accordingly."

"We wonder why we’re suffering economically, why we’re suffering economically, why we’re suffering the moral decay, and now they want to take away that natural union between a man and woman that’s called family."

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary was forced to strip Moore of the chief justice title in 2003 because he rejected a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse, and now that he is running again, many Republicans in the state "are privately despondent over the prospect of a Moore victory and its effect on the state’s image," The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Earlier this year, Moore told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that secular government would eventually lead to Islamic law in the United States because “a government that is denying God” allowed Sharia law to take hold.

Moore's entire speech at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally is available here.

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

DOWNLOADS: (961)

PLAYS: (14775)

Embed

From this Friday evening's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart had some fun with Clint Eastwood's appearance at the Republican National Convention, which he described as the "most joy" he's "gotten from an old man since Dick Cheney non-fatally shot one in the face."

After showing a bit more of Eastwood's performance at the RNC, Stewart proceeded to rip apart Mitt Romney's speech and the reason that Clint Eastwood's speech was so damaging to Republicans.

STEWART: Here's why it hurts. It hurts these Republicans bad because this convention, like all conventions is a scripted and focus group fantasy and the display of Eastwood's Gran Torino id was the very thing Republicans had constructed the entire week to suppress.

This convention was the vision of a perfect America that used to exist, until Barack Obama ruined it and so what if that America had never actually existed.

ROMNEY: To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. That unique brand of optimism, humility... it's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach your kid's soccer team or help out on school trips. It's when we see that new business opening up downtown, so when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on the block doing the same thing. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.

STEWART: Gee whiz pops, that sounds awesome. That was the uncomplicated America that you remember. I think in the early '60's there are some churches in Alabama that would have disagreed with your sports team versus place of worship anecdote.

But the point is this, when this convention attempted to do is say that we could all live again in this nostalgic paradise, if it weren't for this one f**king guy.

After pointing out that Republicans have invented a complete fiction of a world that never existed and playing a bunch of clips of these Republicans at the convention attacking President Obama, Stewart laid waste to Romney's ridiculous talking point during his speech that he really wanted Obama to succeed.

STEWART: Bull f**king s**t! You... wanted... Obama to succeed? We may not remember that America was never Mayberry, but we sure at s**t can remember back to 2009.

Cue the clips of Fox "News" and rMoney himself hoping for failure from President Obama almost immediately after he got elected and Clint Eastwood giving us more proof that Republicans live in upside down land and a world of projecting their faults onto their opponents, regardless of reality.

DOWNLOADS: (224)

PLAYS: (2507)

Embed

A group of pastors in Alabama says that they are not racist even though only "white Christians" were invited to their three-day conference, which will include a cross burning and be attended by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members.

Residents in Guin, Alabama became outraged earlier this week after they noticed flyers posted around the town that read, "Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited." The groups Christian Identity Ministries and the Church of God's Chosen told WIAT that they just didn't have the "facilities" to accommodate non-whites.

"We're seldom ever have been invited to black Muslim events and we never have been invited to NAACP events and we never have been invited to join Jewish synagogues events and stuff," Christian Identity Ministries Pastor William J. Collier explained.

"It has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of racism or hate or anything like that," he added. "And anybody who would brand it as that would be a racist and a hater themselves, you know."

Collier insisted that the "Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony" to be held on final day of the event symbolized an "opposition to tyranny."

"We are not burning a cross, look at the word is says it says light a cross," Christian Identity Ministries Reverend Mel Lewis told WIAT. "If you light a light in your house do you burn down your house. We often use fire. Our ancient fathers said fire was a cleansing element. Even the Bible says the earth will be purified with fire what purer element can we use as a symbol of our worship."

But the president of the NAACP's Birmingham Metro Chapter could not recall any past cross burning that had not been associated with racism or hate.

"The only context that I'm familiar with is one that is not very positive," Hezekiah Jackson said. "And one that really symbolizes an era that many of us have hoped to put behind us. And that is this whole era of Jim Crow, this whole era of white supremacy, this whole era of discrimination and racial hatred."

"I think it's really hard to clarify what's going on, but it seems to be some vestiges of what we call white supremacy here in Alabama. We just have to be honest about it."

The "Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited" event ends on Friday. It is the fourth year that the whites-only conference has been held in Lamar county.

(h/t: Think Progress)