Monday, April 10, 2023

Newly discovered financial documents show Alabama Power spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe much more, on campaigns of intimidation and fear

Burt Newsome and family

If you live in Alabama, have you ever thought, "I wonder why my power bills are so high"? If so, you have come to the right place because this post has information that will help answer that question.

Recently discovered documents, including financial spreadsheets, show that Alabama Power spent more than $300,000 in a seven-week period (during summer 2020) to threaten and intimidate perceived enemies (with emphasis on the word perceived) of the company, according to a report at banbalch.com. The documents further show Alabama Power might have spent up to $1 million a year on surveillance and similar activities. 

Did this have anything to do with providing goods and services to customers like you? Nope, reports Ban Balch Publisher and CDLU CEO  K.B. Forbes. Who ultimately pays for this activity? You probably want to look in the mirror for the answer to that one. Bottom line: Documents indicate Alabama Power spends major dollars on activities that have little, or nothing, to do with serving customers. 

Who were the victims, in this instance? They include Forbes himself (and his family), who had the temerity to practice serious journalism regarding Alabama Power and affiliated entities. It also includes Birmingham-area attorney Burt Newsome (and his family), who had the audacity to challenge Alabama Power and affiliated entities in court. As you can tell from the photo above, Newsome and his family are a scary-looking bunch.

Writes Forbes, under the headline "Spreadsheets Confirm Waste of Millions by Southern Company Against Innocent Victims": 

The expenditures had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

In a seven-week period in the summer of 2020, Southern Company approved expenditures of more than $318,000 to target, smear, intimidate, and threaten innocent victims. The victims included us, the CDLU, Burt Newsome, K.B. Forbes, and their respective families.

The CDLU, the Forbes Family, and the Newsome Family were not adversaries or competitors of Southern Company or its subsidiaries.

At a burn rate of $45,000 a week, Southern Company may have spent more than $1 million a year in expenses related to dark ops, surveillance, and clandestine misconduct spearheaded by obscure consulting firm Matrix, LLC.

You can view the spreadsheets at this link. They are just some of the documents now in the possession of federal law-enforcement and federal regulators. Writes Forbes:

The spreadsheets demonstrate sheer out-of-control spending approved by Zeke Smith, the Executive Vice President of Government Affairs for Alabama Power.

The discredited Alabama Political Reporter (APR) was bought and paid for $120,000, which would be disbursed monthly through August of 2021, according to the spreadsheet.

APR was the highest-paid stooge, according to all entries on the financial records.

Besides the smear pieces from that summer of 2020, brain amputee and disgraced CDLU stalker Josh Moon wrote two more APR hit pieces in January and February of 2021 attacking Burt Newsome and K.B. Forbes.

Moon’s hit pieces flopped and were mocked, an embarrassing career moment for a has-been journalist and failed realtor.

Southern Company spent more than $20,000 in boosting APR hit pieces on digital platforms, including Facebook, that utterly backfired.

Southern Company also spent more than $9,000 developing and publicizing two smear Web sites on Forbes, the CDLU, and Newsome. One site falsely defamed and called Newsome a rapist and untruthfully labeled and defamed Forbes as a defender of a rapist.

The second site never went live.

Antisemite booster Frank Matthews was paid $6,000 to put up signs and hand out flyers about the Web site. Ironically, the signs were removed by the City of Birmingham within 48 hours of their appearance, in late August of 2020, during a severe rainstorm.

How low did this activity go -- and how disconcerting did it get for the targets? Forbes writes:

The earliest dated expenditure was June 11, 2020, in which Southern Company approved the purchase of software Import Genius at $399.00 to track an exportation by the Forbes Family.

The expenditure, with no corporate purpose, was a stunning invasion of privacy.

On that same day, June 11, 2020, the Forbes Family received a Bill of Lading (BOL) from the shipping company used by Pottery Barn. The Forbes’ exported a Princess Castle Bed to Mexico for their then-three-year-old daughter.

1st Boost was an apparent $5,000 payment for the initial attack on Forbes, where they terrorized his family and made his then eight-year-old cry in fear.

Southern Company buffoons in a rented van went to the house adjacent to Forbes’ and held a quick “shoot and scoot” fake protest, and left within two-minutes.

The buffoons couldn’t spell Forbes’ last name correctly.

Law enforcement showed up after a terrorized neighbor called 911. For their own safety and per suggestions from law enforcement, Forbes’ family fled to Mexico while Forbes’ neighbors moved, placing a deposit on a new home six-days after the fake protest.

The expenditures of terror and intimidation had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

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