READING IN THE RAIN
You’re stuck inside. How about doing a little reading? It may educate you on why Alabama is number one, in corruption and religion, in the United States. That combination labels us as hypocrites. You see religion is the tool of crooked politicians and they use the church to lure you into false narratives for their personal gain.
My father told me once that if a politician tells you he is a christian and he wants to be your friend, run like hell.
Baldwin County has become home to it’s own Cabal. They have embedded themselves in every facet of our Government and judiciary. The Cabal is alive and well in Fairhope and it’s citizens contribute to the Cabal by being complacent and disengaged.
Shadow Government Southern Style shines a bright light on how Alabama lost 3 Billion dollars on a scam orchestrated by former Governor Bob Riley and his thieves. The same scam exists today, gambling. The citizens of Alabama have been played like the church organ, while surrounding states have cashed in.
This is a book review that will give you a peak inside the Cabal. Baldwin County, especially Fairhope has it’s own Cabal, that the politicians promote every Sunday.
Review of Shadow Government: Southern Style
By Thomas Gallion
Chris E. Warner
September 15, 2020
I picked up a copy of this thin trade paperback from Page & Palette last week. What it lacked in initial presentation it more than made up for in content. I remember the author from his high-profile legal representation of Alabama football coach Ronnie Cottrell in his case against the NCAA, years ago. The book also came with a strong recommendation by consumer advocate Paul Ripp of the Ripp Report; although its enticing title had already placed it at the top of my “to read” list.
Any good book evokes emotion. Human beings are emotional creatures. Reading a shocking story with irrevocable consequences such as this, can stir a gamut of feelings that leave one wondering and questioning their every faded, jaded prior move; as it has the power to clearly redefine our thoughts relative to how and where we choose to live, work and raise a family. After all, the quality of our lives is worth planning for; and people ultimately vote with their pocketbooks—and their feet, to the best of their known abilities.
The book is a loose collection of reflections and recollections by a seasoned Alabama lawyer fed up with the rampant and destructive corruption that has plagued his beloved state and country, seemingly his entire lifetime. The beginning is a retroactive, introspective look into Alabama’s not so distant past. Gallion details his early childhood memories of Alabama’s ominous Sin City episode in Phenix City (Murder City) that spawned the assassination of its newly-elected Attorney General, Albert Patterson. The decedent, a decent man, was vocally bent on ending the corruption and vice that was the source of the city’s awful namesake. It proved to be his undoing, by the Alabama political machine.
Gallion’s father would later hold the same office of Alabama Attorney General, and as a young man he witnessed up close the sausage factory of state politics and the many colorful if not disingenuous characters who routinely butchered the state’s already meager chances of pulling itself out of poverty, ignorance and the destructive hamster wheel of endemic political corruption. Weaned on the unforgiving blood sport of Alabama politics, Gallion’s particular world view was derived from a lifetime of political immersion and legal wrangling. Montgomery, after all, was his home.
Starting off, Gallion gives the reader several knee-slapping anecdotes of Alabama’s past political plums—larger than life characters such as former legislator Frank Tennille (Father of Toni) and Governor Big Jim Folsum, whose appetites for booze, sex and related humor were the apparent stuff of legend. This is a fine introduction, as it gets you laughing. What soon follows makes you want to cry.
The book’s hallmark is its clear explanation of the planned deceit perpetuated on the people of Alabama by the republican party over the last few years; specifically, he explains why Alabama is the only remaining state without an education lottery: pure, unadulterated greed. Gallion instructs that the Alabama political leadership (republicans) learned that they could become filthy rich by doing the bidding of the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi, who operated federally-protected, tax-free casinos just over the Alabama-Mississippi line. By thwarting the advancement of an educational lottery in Alabama, these willing traitors from Alabama could keep the payoffs flowing. However, they realized that they could get more out of the Choctaws—by doing more, with the help and blessings of powerful Washington insiders—like the misguided U.S. Attorney General under Barack Obama, Eric Holder.
Gallion explains how Alabama Attorney General Big Luther Strange, in a Nazi-like move, ignored the order of Alabama’s first black federal judge and raided Milton McGregor’s Victoryland casino, which paid state and local taxes that went to nearby black schools, physically stripping it of its video poker and slot machines—only to shortly thereafter turn the machines over to the cabal’s monetary masters—the Mississippi Choctaws, who gladly took them in. But that’s not all.
Gallion goes on to explain that in a previous episode, Governor Bob Riley’s administration proved just how lucrative holding public office in Alabama can be. Exxon-Mobil had for years fudged its numbers and underpaid excise taxes on oil and gas owed to the State. A court ruled in Alabama’s favor totaling $3.1 billion in unpaid taxes. Exxon-Mobil, refusing to go quietly, appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court. Gallion claims that Governor Bob Riley, a republican, employed his son, Rob Jr. to offer his legal services to Exxon-Mobil while the governor asserted his influence and control over the state’s highest court, instructing them thereafter on how to rule. The result was the award to the state was diminished from $3.1 billion to a paltry $51 million. One can only wonder what $3 billion could have done for Alabama’s struggling educational system, and how much the Riley family received for the unthinkable, orchestrated theft.
Gallion’s book is noteworthy, but there are no references or footnotes, leaving one to wonder how much of it is really true; or just his strong opinion based on hearsay. Further, Gallion writes glowingly of narcissist sociopath Richard Scrushy, HealthSouth’s disgraced former CEO, calling him “an innocent businessman” deserving of a full pardon, even though he orchestrated one of the largest accounting frauds in American history, landing him on hour-long documentaries on American Greed, Sixty Minutes and more recently, Netflix’s Trial by Media: King Richard.
As a native Louisianian who lived ten years in Alabama, I must say that Gallion’s book proves unequivocally that Alabama is every bit as corrupt as Louisiana; and that if you are not part of the connected cabal or machine that rules the state—you might as well consider yourself subjugated, much like the former slaves sold at auction and dominated for decades after under the oppressive Jim Crow regime; and thereafter, to this day. In that vein, it makes one seriously question living in the Dirty South with sane hopes of a better life for themselves and their families.
I applaud Tommy Gallion for his courage. The book finishes with a fine essay on why every American should be weary of the corrupt forces fighting sitting President, Donald J. Trump, and that we must all try and be more vigilant in fighting corruption at every level of government. Hopefully he will live to see the changes he so desperately hopes to see for not only his pellagra-ridden home state, but also for the embattled United States of America, a country still worth fighting for.
Christopher E. Warner