“Old South”

The Virginia Presidential Primary: Romney Vs Paul, With No One Else On Ballot!

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A weird development has set up the Virginia Presidential primary of March 6 to be a potential major factor in the GOP Presidential race.

Virginia is a “swing state” with a Republican state government stronger than ever before; with a Governor, Bob McDonnell, who is a potential Vice Presidential nominee; with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, thought to be supportive of the Tea Party struggles against Speaker of the House John Boehner; and a state with northern Virginia very liberal and the rest of the state more traditional Old South. It is a state that Barack Obama won, and is a crucial state for him to win in 2012.

Considering the significance of Virginia, one would think all seven GOP candidates for President would be on the ballot, but instead only TWO are to be listed–Mitt Romney, the candidate of “Establishment” Republicans; and Ron Paul, the libertarian and Tea Party, small government, and cutting back on interventions overseas, candidate!

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry failed to gain enough ballot signatures, and Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman chose not to compete at all in the state.

So, assuming the nomination has NOT been won already, which seems a highly likely scenario, this could be the ultimate battle in many ways of Nelson Rockefeller vs Barry Goldwater, modified of course, but definitely a battle for the soul of the Republican Party in 2012!

Florida Governor Rick Scott Demonstrates A Racist Power Grab Over Florida A & M Hazing Death Incident!

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Florida Governor Rick Scott, already extremely unpopular in public opinion polls, with a terrible public reputation, has now worsened his image further by an attempted power grab over the state university system!

A tragic event took place at Florida A & M, a leading historically black university, with great academic results. A student in the marching band for the university was murdered in a hazing incident, and this tragic event was made worse by the intervention of Governor Scott into the situation, attempting to fire the university president over the issue.

This was a shocking intervention, as hazing, as bad as it is, occurs at many universities all over the country, and we don’t see the firing of university or college presidents over that tragic set of events, particularly without an investigation and due process!

Interesting development, which makes one wonder IF this event had occurred at a university such as the University of Florida, Florida State University, University of South Florida, University of Central Florida, or any other branch of the state university system, would Governor Scott have been so quick to intervene, as he does at a black university campus?

This incident can only be seen as racist, and undermines the whole state of Florida and its university system, as the old South seems to be arising again, the era where racism and lynchings occurred regularly!

What Scott attempted to do was a “lynching” of the university President in a different form, and must be condemned as an abuse of power! If there is a problem with any branch of the state university system, there is a Board of Trustees and a whole administrative network that can deal with any issue that arises!

It is NOT the business of the Governor of Florida or ANY state to interfere with educational matters, even those that are legal problems! That is up to the judicial system, not a governor out of control and overly egotistical and narcissistic as Rick Scott is!

The Troy Davis Case: Capital Punishment On Trial, And The Supreme Court Disgraces Itself!

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The decision of the US Supreme Court to allow the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia tonight is a legal travesty, and makes the Supreme Court look more than ever what it is rapidly becoming–a total disgrace!

It is shocking to the author that the decision of the Court was unanimous! How could it be that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan could sit by and allow themselves to be bullied by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and that Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy could not see the virtue of allowing a lie detector test; would not consider that a number of prison wardens called for clemency because of doubts about the evidence, none of which was physical and with no gun found; would not take into account that seven out of nine witnesses in the trial recanted; would not listen to five jurors in the case who said they regret their decision to convict and give the death penalty; and would not listen to a witness who said one of the other witnesses confessed that he had been the murderer of the police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989!

This execution puts capital punishment on trial, and it is barbaric that a country that prides itself on democratic virtues and values allows the death penalty when there is evidence so often that innocent people are being executed, many of them minorities in Southern states that have always been “excellent” in utilizing the death penalty against the racial minority that they exploited in slavery and segregation! This is an enhanced way to utilize racism and justify it!

One would like to believe that the “Old South” has passed into history, but actually it has NOT in any sense! Not only do Southern states use the death penalty very often, but also they seem to revel in the fact that seven of the “Old South” states–all but Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Texas–joined with border states Kentucky and West Virginia, to be nine of the ten poorest states, according to the US Census of 2010!

The “Old South” is great at executing people, and keeping them ignorant and in poverty, and by no coincidence, they tend to be RED states, those that tend to vote Republican!

Is this something the GOP should be proud of? And is it conscionable that Republican candidates tend to ignore poverty, never mentioning the disgrace of it in 21st century America, and this including millions of poor whites, as well as minorities?

This is a sad moment for America, but hopefully, it will start up the fight to end capital punishment as against American democracy, making us look terrible in the viewpoint of our friends, European countries, that do not allow the death penalty, and do just fine without it!