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ATHENS, Ala. (WHNT) – A pharmacist stopped a robbery in Athens on Monday morning by pulling out his own gun on the crook. Around 8 a.m. Noah Jay Davis, 22, walked into Westside Pharmacy, at the corner of Hines Street and Market Street. He handed the clerk a list of drugs he wanted.“He said that he had a list of drugs and he would like for me to look at,” says pharmacist Terrell Milby. “He had questions about them. When he looked at them, the napkin that he had, something written on, he said this is the wrong list. And...

It figures. This is what happens when you run out of other people’s money. The Democratic Party in Alabama faces eviction for not paying its bills. The water company wants their money, too. Blog.Al reported: Acting state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley lowered her head and slowly shook it side to side when summing up the financial condition of her once powerful party. “We’re broke, broke, broke,” Worley told the party’s Executive Board in a special called meeting Frida. How broke is broke? Worley didn’t sugar coat the answer. “This is my 18th day as chair and thirty minutes after...

Apparently spending money you don’t have doesn’t work too well when you can’t just print your own money. But maybe the Alabama Democratic Party can get some budget tips from Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. Or maybe tips like those nearly got them evicted. According to its website, the Alabama Democratic Party believes in the equality of all people, the power of education, the dignity of work, and our responsibility to each other, especially the least of these. One thing it doesn’t believe in is having a budget. Acting state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley lowered her head and slowly...

Acting state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley lowered her head and slowly shook it side to side when summing up the financial condition of her once powerful party. "We're broke, broke, broke," Worley told the party's Executive Board in a special called meeting Frida. How broke is broke? Worley didn't sugar coat the answer. "This is my 18th day as chair and thirty minutes after I took over on April 22nd the landlord of the building where our party headquarters are came in and said he wanted us out, that the rent was overdue and was always overdue," said Worley....

The campaign of civil disobedience in Birmingham ended with a deal between white business leaders (77 in all) and black leaders to desegregate the city and hire more black employees in private businesses and city government alike. On the afternoon of Friday May 10th Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Dr. Martin Luther King appeared with other black leadership to announce the deal and a few hours later white business leader Sidney Smyer released a statement acknowledging the deal. White leaders kept a low profile fearing retaliation. The Ku Klux Klan had kept quiet during the protests in Birmingham, but they had...

The chambers appear to have agreed to exempt businesses from civil liability related to the use of an employee's gun — a key win for business lobbyists. Lawmakers say they've also agreed to require that sheriffs issue a reason for denying a concealed weapons permit and allow appeals of any denial. And both chambers' leaders say they want to relax restrictions on citizens' carrying weapons openly in Alabama and carrying weapons in their vehicles.

When the "Senior Citizens Committee" of Birmingham got together late on Tuesday May 7th the business leaders who had defeated Bull Connor felt defeated by the civil rights protests and the demands for integration in the city. At least one of them suggested asking Governor George Wallace for a martial law declaration. But the pressure was on for a negotiated solution. The official line from the Kennedy Administration was that the President was "monitoring" the situation in Birmingham but in reality his people were leaning on the business leaders and Dr. Martin Luther King for a negotiated solution. The negotiations...

When non-violent protestors faced the dogs and water cannon of Bull Connor in Birmingham, spectators by the hundreds were angered. They shouted at the police and firefighters to be sure, but then some of them picked up rocks and other objects and began to hurl them. As the media spread the images of the violence around the country sympathy and outrage spread. People were moved to give money to the protest movement, others wanted to come down and get arrested like the children who first walked into the paddy wagons did. And yet others were just angered towards police and...

Leo Johnson, a black man, has never received an apology from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Not a word. Which is passing strange for a group that proclaims itself to be “a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.” Johnson, the African-American building manager and security guard for the Family Research Council (FRC) was shot and wounded last August 15 by an angry gay activist, Floyd Corkins. Corkins was angry over the FRC’s support for heterosexual marriage. Researching the group on the Internet, he found that...

The incoming leader of the National Rifle Association has a long history with the powerful gun rights lobby and a penchant for bold statements that are sure to enflame an already explosive national debate over gun control. James Porter, an Alabama attorney and first vice president of the NRA, assumes the presidency on Monday after the group's national convention wraps up in Houston.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions estimates about 57 million new people, immigrants and people with nonimmigrant visas, will be entering the United States to compete with middle class Americans for their jobs if the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill passes. Sessions’ staff released an analysis detailing how they reached that number on Friday morning. “This is a number that exceeds the population of the state of California, our largest state,” Sessions said on a conference call with reporters discussing the analysis. “It’s a very, very significant impact on our economy and the American people.” Sessions argued that...

On May 3, 1963 Eugene "Bull" Connor was still officially the duly elected Commissioner of Public Safety responsible for the police and fire departments of Birmingham. But the election a month before of business community backed Albert Boutwell as mayor had his days numbered pending a final ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court. After the massive protest by hundreds of black children, some as young as six and seven years old, the day before Connor's jails were filled with them. He had no more room. When hundreds more students emerged from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church at noontime, Connor had...

Chad Cross was hunting for turkey in the woods in Alabama when a venomous pit viper rattlesnake bit him in the lower left leg. Nervous and scared, the Montgomery resident attempted to calm himself and slow his heart rate so as to prevent the quick spreading of the deadly venom throughout his body. He then made a move that saved his life. He pulled out his $10 snake-bite kit. WSFA has the incredible story:

As the Obama administration prepares to launch a new round of strategic nuclear missile cuts, Russia’s strategic nuclear forces are undergoing a major modernization, according to U.S. officials. Russia's military announced last month that as part of the nuclear buildup, Moscow later this year will deploy the first of its new intercontinental ballistic missiles called the Yars-M. Details of the missile are being kept secret, but it has been described as a fifth-generation strategic nuclear system that Russian officials say will be able to penetrate U.S. missile defenses using a new type of fuel that requires a shorter burn time...

FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY THE PIVOTAL MOMENT IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OCCURRED IN BIRMINGHAM WHEN CHILDREN MARCHED INTO BULL CONNOR'S POLICE LINES. At noon on Thursday May 2nd the first protestors came out of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to leave the black part of Birmingham headed for downtown in violation of a court injunction. But there was something different because they were high school students recruited into a fading protest effort that had begun nearly a month ago on April 3rd. Dr. Martin Luther King had urged his organizers to come up with something to draw national media attention...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Legislature is telling the federal government and others to back off on gun control. The Senate passed legislation Tuesday declaring that “All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment.” It also says federal laws in violation of the Second Amendment shall be considered null and void in Alabama. The vote was 24-6. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Paul Sanford of Huntsville, said the bill resulted from hundreds of emails and calls he received from his north Alabama constituents concerned that Congress might enact new gun regulations or...

Back in the days of Operation Rescue protests blocking abortion clinic entrances I was in the mainstream media supervising news coverage on weekends when the demonstrations occurred. Police had apparently infiltrated the movement because they had advance knowledge of the first protests. They knew when I knew about a protest. I told protest leaders not to call me in advance but to wait until the protests began. I would then call the reporter and photographer to send them out. When Martin Luther King led a failed campaign of civil disobedience in Albany, Georgia in 1962 police and FBI informants were...

Southern Christian Leadership Conference Executive Director Wyatt Walker called it "Project C" for confrontation. After a failed campaign of civil disobedience in Albany, Georgia the year before, Dr. Martin Luther King planned a new better planned campaign in Birmingham for the spring of 1963. There was a sense of hope in the air on Wednesday April 3rd. A "new era" was being hailed in Birmingham with the 8-thousand vote victory for white reformers who intended to change the city's commission form of government with a strong mayor and city council. The business leaders of Birmingham had engineered the campaign to...

On a quest for adventure, we decided to see what the big deal was with guns and shooting, so we organized a field trip to the local shooting range. It was going to be a big time, as none of us had fired a gun in real life. . . . . The girls got their 22 pistols and were getting set up when someone shot what sounded like a cannon. Stephanie screamed, Linda jumped and I wet my pants.

the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate... The deal... was fashioned in White House meetings... the $50,000 payouts to black farmers had proved a magnet for fraud. the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie... Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination. As a senator, Barack Obama supported expanding compensation for black farmers, and then as...

Witnesses say these very strong explosions could be felt miles away! Two large explosions on a fuel barge in Mobile, in Spanish Fort and Daphne, Alabama, over 10 miles away across the river, according to local reports.

BREAKING NEWS: Explosion shook houses and blew doors open in Spanish Fort.

A caller tonight phoned in bomb threats at three north Alabama hospitals, according to The Huntsville Times' news partner WHNT News Channel Channel 19. According to WHNT, bomb threats were made at Cullman Regional Medical Center as well as Marshall Medical Centers in Guntersville and Boaz. A male caller said that bombs would go off at all three hospitals at the same time, WHNT reports.The Cullman Times reported that the call was received at about 9 p.m. and that authorities expected to be finished sweeping the Cullman hospital at about 10:30 p.m.Patients were being evacuated at the Cullman hospital, according...

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama, April 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An elderly woman who allegedly sprayed pro-abortion activists with holy water appeared in court this week to answer to misdemeanor harassment charges. Joyce Fecteau, who is in her seventies, was arrested outside the facility in January after pro-abortion demonstrators Lisa Cox and Katherine Norlin accused Fecteau of spraying them with an “unknown substance."  The pair said the incident occurred December 22 on the sidewalk outside the “Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives� abortion business in Huntsville, while they were escorting a woman inside. Fecteau said that she sprayed the holy water because another...

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take: Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period -- the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action -- southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an...

TALLADEGA — Nearly 1,000 guns seized by Talladega police, Talladega County Sheriff’s Office and the Talladega County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force were auctioned off to federally licensed gun dealers Tuesday afternoon. According to Talladega Police Chief Alan Watson, the sale netted a total of $98,700, which will be divided between the three agencies based on who had seized the weapons in question. According to auctioneer Johnny Vetra, 30 to 40 dealers from Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky came to look at the weapons, which ranged from a flint-lock pistol to .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol that frequently retails for...

Earlier this week I wrote letting you know that over 700 retired Special Forces signed an open letter to the United States House of Representatives demanding that there be a select committee be formed by Congress to investigate the attack that took place on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. Well, here’s something. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) put forth a House Resolution to that effect back on January 18, 2013 and do you know where it’s gotten since that time? It’s languishing in committee. Rep. Wolf introduced H. Res 36, establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the...

Airbus is beginning construction on a new assembly plant in Mobile that could mean jobs for South Mississippi residents. The groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday morning at the 1,650-acre Brookley Aeroplex industrial park, site for the new plant. The $600 million factory is expected to employ 1,000 people once production of the Airbus A320 jet begins around 2015.

Montgomery officials are speaking out against new legislation that was passed by the Senate that some say makes Alabama gun laws more lax. Both Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange and Public Safety Director Chris Murphy are against parts of this new bill, saying it could be dangerous for Montgomery. The new legislation, drafted by Senator Scott Beason of Gardendale, would make gettting and carrying a gun easier. There are several sections of the bill that have people talking but two parts especially, have Montgomery officials upset: 1. Would allow Alabamians the right to have a gun in their car with a...

Senate Republican staffers estimated Thursday that the annual cost to taxpayers of legalizing illegal immigrants could be in the billions, if they use their status to apply for federal benefits from Medicaid and ObamaCare. The claim, though, was challenged by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a key Republican engaged in immigration bill talks. Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee -- responding to an emerging immigration proposal that includes a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants -- had estimated that the cost could total up to $40 billion in 2022, "just for Medicaid and ObamaCare." "The net costs would be...

MONTGOMERY, Alabama --- The Alabama Senate passed a bill today that would allow for free, lifetime permits to carry pistols in vehicles and that would make other changes to state gun laws. The bill passed after hours of debate and a parade of amendments, some of which were approved. It now moves to the House of Representatives. Those who received a permit to carry in their vehicles would have to undergo a background check and the permits would be revocable if, for example, the permit holder committed a crime, said Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, the bill’s sponsor. Under current law,...

Police have arrested a man for cutting American flags from flagpoles around Huntsville. SNIP According to police, Pham told them he was "protesting the war," but did not specify what war. SNIP

If you want to carry a gun in Alabama, you’re probably kin to a slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed, imported criminal-minded grandma or grandpa. At least that’s the word from education expert, the Dishonorable Representative Joe Mitchell (D) Dumb A**. And no, the “A” is not short for Alabama. Yes, racism is still alive in the stormy south. Well at the very least it’s still alive in Alabama’s 103th state house district in Mobile. That’s where Rep. Joe Mitchell, Ph.D. comes from.

BIRMINGHAM—A federal grand jury Wednesday indicted a Cullman used car dealer for violating federal protections for active duty military service members by refusing to reduce the loan interest rate and repossessing the vehicle he sold to a man who was later deployed overseas with the Alabama National Guard, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard D. Schwein, Jr. A two-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges Carl Ralph Nuss, 75, with violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The act restricts or limits civil actions in the areas of financial management, including rental agreements,...

State Rep. Joseph Mitchell, D-Mobile, has confirmed via social media and in interviews this week that he sent a series of racially charged emails in response to an inquiry from a Jefferson County man, saying his comments were misunderstood and that he saw no reason to apologize. AL.com on Wednesday reported on the correspondence between Mitchell and Eddie Maxwell, a retired coal miner who sent a mass email to legislators in January advising them not to pass any new restrictions on gun owners. Mitchell’s volatile response – he referred to Maxwell’s "slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous ... kin folk" –...

State Rep. Joe Mitchell, D-Mobile, had an outlandish exchange via email with a Jefferson County man who asked him and other lawmakers not to pass any laws that would restrict gun ownership. Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to state legislators at 10:54 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law. Mitchell responded from his public, ALHouse.gov email account at 11:59 p.m., telling Maxwell: "Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed,...

In Alabama, no state legislator, Republican or Democrat, would ever question gun rights, given the state’s conservative leanings and rural setting. But Democratic Alabama State Rep. Joseph Mitchell of Mobile, Ala. has a curious take on why his constituents in his majority African-American district should appreciate their Second Amendment rights. In emails sent from Mitchell’s official state legislature account obtained by the blog Yellow Hammer Politics and published Wednesday morning, Mitchell had a heated exchange with a constituent identified as Eddie Maxwell and provided his own defense of the Second Amendment. ...more...

Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ have the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity. “We had in the past a parent to question us about some of the things we do here at school,” said Heritage Elementary School principal Lydia Davenport. “So we’re just trying to make sure we respect and honor everybody’s differences.”

DAPHNE, Alabama -- A 21-year-old has been arrested after police say he put medication into a plastic Easter egg which mingled with 1,500 others and made its way into the hands of a 6-year-old Sunday. Jarret Anthony Helm was arrested and charged with one count of disorderly conduct, according to the Daphne Police Department. He is being held in Daphne City Jail. Officials say Helm was volunteering at Christ the King Catholic Church Sunday when he "inadvertently and accidentally," mixed a plastic Easter egg holding his ADHD medication with 1,500 bound for the March 24 Easter Family Fun Day egg...

An Alabama homeowner shot and killed a suspected burglar while defending his property on Tuesday night. It is merely the latest instance of a gun owner using a firearm to combat a criminal, which TheBlaze has reported on extensively. The gun owner dropped the home intruder with just one shot from his shotgun, according to police. Investigators do not expect any charges to be filed against the homeowner as it appears to be a clear-cut case of self-defense. Police responded to a call about a gunshot victim in Albertville, Ala. just before 9 p.m. Tuesday. Assistant Police Chief Jamie Smith...

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Investigators do not expect charges to be filed against a homeowner who shot and killed a burglar at his home Tuesday evening. Officers responded to a call about a gunshot wound on Abbott Road just before 9 p.m., and Assistant Chief Jamie Smith said the homeowner made the call to report the shooting. “We are in the early stages of the investigation, but right now we’re treating it as a burglary and the homeowner defending his property,” Smith said. Investigators will present their findings to a grand jury but don’t expect an indictment. “Your home is...

New Jersey’s governor has branded them “political thugs.” A former federal education official has likened them to terrorists. Less vilified in Kansas than some other parts of the country, those teachers unions still find their clout under attack in the Legislature. The battle over teachers unions has marched its way across the country. Ohio. Michigan. Wisconsin. Idaho. And now it’s in Kansas, greeted by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and his conservative allies in the Legislature. Lawmakers are moving to undercut the tenuous power of teachers unions by barring them from using voluntary paycheck deductions for politics. And they’re going after...

SELMA, Alabama -- Politicians this morning took the opportunity of the annual pilgrimage across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge to defend the voting rights legislation inspired by the "Bloody Sunday" confrontation there in 1965. Vice President Joe Biden is among dozens of national political figures gathered in Selma this morning, just four days after the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That provision requires states with a history of discrimination to get Justice Department approval before making any change to election procedure. Alabama's Shelby County, which brought the issue to the Supreme...

CLARKSDALE, Miss. -- The body of Marco McMillian, the former Alabama A&M administrator whose body was found last week, was "beaten, dragged and burned," according to a statement released by his family to the Jackson Clarion Ledger. A Shelby Miss. man, 22-year-old Jeremy Reed, has been charged in McMillian's murder. "We feel this was not a random act of violence based on the condition of the body when it was found," the McMillian family said in the statement. "Marco, nor anyone, should have their lives end in this manner." McMillian worked in the cabinet of former Alabama A&M President Robert...

The release of hundreds of illegal immigrants into a federal monitoring system this week may be an ongoing headache for the Obama administration, as Republicans focus their scrutiny on uncovering potential missteps. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, “will be aggressively examining the ramification of this decision,” according to a committee aide. And Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, pressed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to take more responsibility for the releases, which she says she did not know about beforehand. “I am concerned that you...

BELLEVUE, WA --(Ammoland.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation has warned the City of Guntersville, Ala. to drop its effort to pass an emergency citizen disarmament ordinance or face legal action. Guntersville Mayor Leigh Dollar is reportedly working on a proposal – to be discussed at the city council’s March 4 2012 meeting – that would allow police to confiscate firearms from allegedly “unruly” citizens during an emergency, such as the aftermath of a storm. “The city of Guntersville has no legal authority to adopt or enforce such an ordinance,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb in a letter to Guntersville...

**Note to the moderators: this is a summary post for a number of stories on this same topic. All cited links below include full original titles. No single story/link was sufficient; trying to also prevent multiple posts. Summary: An Alabama Legislative Conference Committee transformed an 8-page education reform bill into a 27-page "bombshell" bill that has now passed both Houses and awaits the Governor's signature. This new bill includes the following provisions: 1. Parents of children in "chronically failing" schools will be allowed to either (a) move into a different (non-failing) public school; or (b) take 80% of the school's...

Jack Lew, the plutocrat nominated as Secretary of the Treasury by Barack Obama, was confirmed by the Senate this afternoon on a 71-26 vote. What was notable about the vote was not so much the outcome as the challenge that Senator Jeff Sessions threw down before his Democratic colleagues–try to defend Jack Lew, and if you can’t defend him, don’t vote for him. One thing is for certain: the Democrats had zero interest in trying to defend Lew’s record. They spoke for a total of 17 minutes on his behalf, while Sessions spoke for 2 1/2 hours, in several installments...

Chuck Hagel won confirmation Tuesday to become defense secretary over objections to his views on Middle East security and the administration’s handling of an attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya. On a 58 to 41 vote, the Senate confirmed the former GOP senator as four Republicans joined 54 Democrats in approving Hagel, ending a nearly two-month battle that included an unprecedented filibuster against the nominee. The four Republican senators voting in favor were Thad Cochran (Miss.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Richard C. Shelby (Ala.) and Rand Paul (Ky.). All 41 no votes came from Republicans. The vote marked a foreign...