7. Pretend journalists are pretending to be mad at a museum

• Two “prominent” “journalists,” think the state of Alabama operating a museum that houses Confederate history is an outrage. The state of Alabama spends $175,000 a year on the “museum, its upkeep, and its employees.” The premise is this is some might love the Confederacy if they see this sad house, doesn’t make sense.
• aldotcom’s Kyle Whitmire complains predictably, “(t)here is only history, but nothing about slavery.” The Montgomery Advertiser‘s Bryan Lyman oddly tweeted, “The idea that stately plantation houses were the norm in slave states can be seen as a Lost Cause attempt to retcon refinement into a base & brutal system.”

6. These are slot machines, too

• Some horse racing games that are actually slot machines are a big windfall for municipalities, firehouses, charities, hospitals and schools in Jefferson and Shelby counties. The fact that the Birmingham Racing Commission provides $4 million for these entities makes them hard to shut down or actually regulate this gaming and legislate for new gaming.
• The truth is that far more than that $4 million is taken from the communities in order to get the money to give away. Here is how it works according to aldotcom: “Most bettors choose to play randomized bets on the colorful machines, although they can bet based on information about the real horses and jockeys. The real names of horses and jockeys are shielded until after a bet is completed, then the full race or the end of it is shown on video on the machine, with the results revealed.” Sounds legit.

5. No expulsion in Alabama schools for firing a gun

• If you are a kid in a school system under the Department of Justice’s thumb and fire a gun in a bathroom, you will not be expelled UNLESS the DOJ and a judge approved.
• This literally happened in Huntsville on Oct. 25 and Board Member Elisa Ferrell says the code doesn’t allow the expulsion of an elementary student and Board Member Ryan Renaud doesn’t even want to punish the kid, “We can control as best we can discipline inside of the classroom while they are inside of that school building, but what they bring into that building is a very difficult thing to manage… But it does trouble me at times to hear individual people make comments or demands for the system when it may or may not reflect the overarching view of the system.” Renaud is my school board member and this is one of the many reasons my kid goes to private school.

4. Drag queen back in Huntsville school

• Staying in Alabama’s worst-run school district, a drag queen teacher who was suspended for making sexual jokes around dogs and children at a “Drag Queen Story Time,” is back at work.
• James Miller, aka Majesty Divine, is back at Mountain Gap Middle School and claims he was suspended because of the outrage and “death threats.” The school system feels no need to explain itself, which is how you really gain the trust of parents and citizens.

3. The media’s dream of a DeSantis-Trump feud continues

• If President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis run against each other for the Republican presidential nomination, the race will be relatively close in Alabama. Alabama Daily News and Gray Television commissioned a Cygnal poll that shows Trump leads DeSantis 49.6% to 35.7%.
• But if Trump bows out, DeSantis is the clear frontrunner with 71.2% of ALGOP support and former Vice President Mike Pence getting only 7.1% among ALGOP voters. Fear not, media and super-Trump fans, it is expected he will be running and announcing soon but the DOJ thinks it should step in.

2. Democrats in Alabama have nothing to run on

• Much like the national party, the Alabama Democrat Party seems a bit rudderless. The Libertarian candidate for governor has spent more money than the Democrat candidate and there is literally no buzz for most candidates across the state.
• ALGOP Chairman John Wahl noted that they aren’t even touting their party, “They’re not putting the donkey on their signs. It’s almost like they’re ashamed of the Democrat Party, and they don’t want to tie themselves to these policies, these woke policies, coming out of the national Democrat Party, and I think that’s telling.”

1. So some election denial is better than others?

• President Joe Biden says that election deniers are on the ballot this year, but Hillary Clinton isn’t running, Karine Jean-Pierre is his press secretary and Biden is president (even if he doesn’t know it all the time), but there is Stacey Abrams in George he should have called out. In Alabama, a 2016 election denier, Mallory Hagan seeks to replace outgoing Speaker of the House Mac MacCutcheon (R-Monrovia)
• Hagan has taken quite the path to this contest: she ran for Miss America in Alabama and lost, then moved to New York and won, denounced Alabama, moved back to Alabama and lost a race to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks) and now has moved to Madison, Ala. Along the way, Hagan suggested the Electoral College overturn the 2016 elections and said she was “happy to try” to overturn a “legitimate free election.” Her opponent is Phillip Rigsby, a pharmacist who wishes “to carry on the legacy and groundwork (McCutcheon) has laid for our district.”