Black attorney, with a long history of achievement and speaking his mind, becomes a target of the White power structure that controls much of life in Alabama

 

Fading news outlets that cling to the past.

A Black Alabama attorney, with a history of achievement and being outspoken, is the target of an effort by the all-White Alabama Supreme Court, to disbar him via action from the U.S. Supreme Court. Donald Watkins, an entrepreneur who operates on an international scale through Masada Resource Group, has become a leading voice in online journalism about scandals plaguing Atlanta-based Southern Company, its affiliate Alabama Power, and related organizations.

The disbarment effort was the subject of an article this week at AL.com (an entity that grew out of The Birmingham News newspaper), which Watkins says contains a number of errors and essentially is part of an effort to silence his reporting on the accounting fraud, racketeering, mismanaged construction projects, and other issues swirling around Southern Company. In an article at his Web site, under the headline "AL.Com’s Darkest Secrets Exposed," Watkins writes:

On Wednesday, AL.com published a “hit” piece on my fight against a recent effort by the all-white, nine-member, Alabama Supreme Court to induce the U.S. Supreme Court to disbar me as an attorney.

Last month, I filed a formal response in opposition to this racially motivated and retaliatory effort by the Alabama Supreme Court.

How did the AL.com article come to life? It's author was reporter Howard Koplowitz, and Watkins reveals some personal baggage that makes Koplowitz  look like a rather sizable hypocrite, with a laptop:

This article was written by AL.com reporter Howard Koplowitz, who filed a personal bankruptcy petition in a Birmingham federal court on April 22, 2019.

Howard Koplowitz's personal bankruptcy filing has never been publicly exposed until today. This is true even though Koplowitz co-wrote a nationally circulated article about the city of Fairfield, Alabama's, May 2020 bankruptcy filing. Koplowitz's article on Fairfield's bankruptcy subjected the city and its residents to scorn and ridicule inside the state's predominantly white communities.

In contrast to Howard Koplowitz, I have NEVER filed a personal bankruptcy petition.

After Koplowitz published his character-assassination article, I learned that his “hit” piece had been orchestrated by operatives who are closely tied to the Atlanta-based Southern Company and the Alabama Supreme Court. In recent months, I have been critical of both entities in my news reporting.

Over the past four decades, The Birmingham News, together with its management company (Alabama Media Group, LLC) and its parent company (Advance Local Media), has repeatedly tried to assassinate my character and destroy my international businesses. This journalistic misconduct has now morphed into a crusade.

Howard Koplowitz's article was not the first time an AL.com reporter has tried a drive-by character assassination attempt on me.

On December 11, 2016, AL.com columnist/reporter John Archibald published an unprovoked "hit" piece on me. After I called Archibald out publicly for his unethical piece of journalism, he apologized to me on my Facebook page and I forgave him.

We must always remember that the News has a long, ugly, and well-documented history of participating in Department of Justice/FBI official and unofficial COINTELPRO counter-intelligence activities that were designed to discredit and destroy black civil-rights leaders from 1956 to the present. Dr. King was one of the News’ earliest targets of the program.

I became a target of the News in 1988 due to my legal representation of the city of Birmingham and Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., in a long string of successful court cases and the multimillion-dollar attorney's fees I was paid for winning all of my cases.

In 2019, John Archibald made up a fake racist quotation and attributed it to me in a published story. After I threatened to sue the Alabama Media Group, AL.com formally retracted Archibald's fake racist quote and publicly apologized for publishing it.

Why is the Alabama Supreme Court intent on seeking Watkins' disbarment? That is not clear because the court's actions are peculiar, as Watkins explains:

I retired from the active practice of law in 2019. However, I renewed my Alabama State Bar license twice after I retired. The last renewed license expired on September 30, 2021.

Many readers are surprised by the fact that I renewed my license for two consecutive years while I was incarcerated as a well-known "political prisoner" from 2019 to 2022.

On November 25, 2019, the Alabama Bar Association issued me License No. 12959 and a Bar ID card for the period of October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020. On September 1, 2020, the Alabama Bar Association also issued me License No. 532 and a Bar ID card for the period of October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021.

The Alabama Supreme Court "disbarment" order that was referenced in Howard Koplowitz's article was strange because it was issued on December 27, 2021 -- three months after my Alabama Bar license had expired. Essentially, the court disbarred a law license that was no longer in effect.

What is more, the Court's purported “disbarment” of me occurred only after I openly challenged the all-white makeup of the Alabama Supreme Court in a September 2021 Notice of Appeal I filed with the Court.

The Alabama Supreme Court is led by Confederate-flag waving Chief Justice Tom Parker, who is still fighting for the South in the Civil War. I fully understand that I am NOT the kind of "Negro" that Tom Parker and his band of fellow justices find acceptable, nor do I want to be that "Negro."

Fortunately, I am a retired attorney who lives in California and works on energy-related projects around the world. As such, I have no need for an Alabama Bar license.

Watkins says AL.com's reporting on him long has been colored by a substantial conflict of interest:

AL.com has never publicly disclosed that it has a $16 million conflict of interest problem with Donald V. Watkins.

This conflict of interest arises from a $16-million arbitration award that I entered (as an arbitrator) on December 30, 2002, in favor of plaintiffs Sherry Horn, Hugh Stewart, Kameron Hyde, Jesse Glass, and James and Teresa McLendon and against The Birmingham News Company.

My arbitration award was affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004.

Both the arbitration panel and Alabama Supreme Court found that the News defrauded the plaintiffs by intentionally, repeatedly, and falsely misrepresenting to them that their dealership franchises would be renewed so long as they performed their work satisfactorily. These franchisees performed their contractual obligations in an outstanding manner.

In making this material misrepresentation repeatedly, the News committed multiple acts of fraud against the plaintiffs, who distributed the News throughout the state of Alabama.

The fraud committed by the News was so egregious that more than $10 million in punitive damages were awarded to the plaintiffs and affirmed on appeal.

The $16 million award made this case one of the largest fraud cases in Alabama history. Yet, the News never published a story about its judicially determined fraudulent conduct.

The white senior-management executives at the News who perpetrated this massive fraud scheme against the plaintiffs were not criminally prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Birmingham because the News had been a longtime, reliable, and highly trusted COINTELPRO media participant. The federal law enforcement establishment in Birmingham had always been able to count on the News to attack the credibility of strong black activists for social, economic, political, and environmental justice.

Why were no criminal prosecutions pursued in such a glaring case of fraud? The interwoven crookedness that permeates Alabama's legal, business, political, media, and law-enforcement communities helps explain that. Writes Watkins:

AL.com bills itself as the state's largest media organization. In reality, AL.com is little more than a sports rag sheet and public-relations tool for the Southern Company and its Alabama Power Company affiliate.

AL.com, which begs for donations at the beginning of its so-called “news” stories, is a dying news media platform that is often propped up financially by laundered money that is sourced from the Southern Company and its affiliates.

This previously undisclosed Southern Company-AL.com financial relationship is the subject of an upcoming article.

I am the journalist who investigated the Southern Company this year and reported on its greed, corruption, accounting fraud, and racketeering activities. AL.com did not do so.

In 2017, I extensively covered the reported rape of University of Alabama honors student Megan Rondini, which is referenced in Howard Koplowitz's “hit” piece. AL.com did not do so.

I have frequently exposed the continuing role played by the Birmingham U.S. Attorney’s office in the informal but ongoing COINTELPRO program. In 2019, AL.com’s continuing role in this program was confirmed by a former top prosecutor in the office.

Because of the News' soiled reputation as an active COINTELPRO participant, AL.com has never endeavored to expose or criticize the misconduct of Birmingham-based FBI agents and/or Department of Justice officials.

Since 2021, I have aggressively attacked the all-white makeup of the Alabama Supreme Court in a state that is 26% black. To me, the state's all-white Supreme Court represents a form of modern-day apartheid within Alabama's court system. As expected, AL.com has steered completely clear of this thorny subject.

As is the case with so many conditions that hold Alabama back -- that keep it from being what it should be, one of the most attractive places to live in the United States -- race plays a prominent role. Writes Watkins:

Negative media stories about me usually emanate from White-controlled, Alabama-based media organizations that are funded directly or indirectly by the Southern Company and its extensive network of business partners and major vendors. The Alabama Political Reporter, Yellowhammer News, AL.com, and Steve Flowers' Blog are a few of the media organizations in this captive and compromised group of online news platforms.

Given Howard Koplowitz's shaky financial condition, he is a prime candidate for those who want to lure reporters at these weak media organizations and entice them into writing and publishing drive-by character-assassination articles.

Howard Koplowitz is the latest bankrupt AL.com reporter who has written and published character-assassination articles on me. As mentioned earlier, John Archibald was the first AL.com reporter to do so.

Archibald filed his personal bankruptcy petition on October 23, 2003. Archibald tried to keep his bankruptcy filing on the "down-low." In 2011, Archibald was finally busted for lying about his bankruptcy filing. Ironically, it was a Southern Company operative who busted Archibald publicly.

As my readers know by now, I am “unbought” and “unbossed.” My news reports are the result of rock-solid investigative journalism. They are also free of cost, free of ads, and free of spin.

I am financially independent, and no one can buy my loyalty or compromise my journalistic integrity.

There is nothing AL.com can do to stop me from reporting the cold, hard truth on matters of significant public interest.

Occasionally, AL.com will provide an Internet platform for financially struggling reporters like Howard Koplowitz and John Archibald to throw spit balls at me. So be it!

Today, AL.com serves in the drum major role for a Confederate-flag waving Chief Justice Tom Parker and his merry band of 18 all-white, Old South, appellate judges and justices as they whistle "Dixie" and march proudly into Alabama’s second “Redemption” period.

As Donald Trump rants about discovery of cocaine at the White House, a legal expert notes that Hunter Biden might have made his legal problems much worse

Hunter Biden at the White House

 

Donald Trump has lashed out at President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over the discovery of a white powdery substance, which now has been confirmed as cocaine, at the White House. In a CNN story yesterday, which appears to be the most recent straight-news reporting on the case out of D.C., authorities did not point at either Biden (or anyone else) as being responsible -- but it appears they are conducting a serious investigation, designed to discover who is connected to the baggie of cocaine and how it got into the White House.

Donald Watkins, a longtime Alabama attorney and criminal-defense expert, is among those who suggest the discovery likely is tied to Hunter Biden. Writing at his Web site under the headline "Hunter Biden Needs a New Stash House for His Cocaine," Watkins states:

Hunter Biden needs a new stash house for his cocaine. On Sunday, White House security personnel found a stash of Hunter Biden's cocaine in the White House Library while he was vacationing with the First Family.

Photos, text messages, and other communications establish that Hunter Biden is a longtime crack-smoking, tax-evading, prostitute-using, gun-toting member of the Biden family whose pending criminal case was “fixed” by federal prosecutors to shield him from imprisonment.

Watkins points to likely the most important issue to arise out of the cocaine discovery so far: Hunter Biden probably has put himself in serous legal jeopardy, and that could cause major headaches for his father's administration and re-election campaign. Writes Watkins:

Federal investigators cannot ask Hunter Biden whether the cocaine that was found Sunday was his because this question would force him to lie about it. If Hunter lies about his ownership and possession of the cocaine, he would be committing two new felonies: (1) obstruction of justice, and (2) making a false statement to a federal law-enforcement official.

What is worse, these new felonies would be occurring while Hunter Biden is awaiting a July 26, 2023, guilty-plea hearing in a Delaware federal court on his other confessed crimes.

The Biden family is hopelessly trapped in a nightmare experience with Hunter Biden, who is a well-known “dope head.” Hunter Biden has created one hot mess for the Biden family and all of the federal law-enforcement officials who are trying so desperately to “fix” his criminal cases.

As for Donald Trump's rant on social media, this is from a report at The Hill:

Former President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at President Biden, his son Hunter Biden, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and the media after a suspicious white powder found at the White House over the weekend came back positive for cocaine.

“Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“But watch, the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was ‘very small,’ & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin, & the story will vanish,” Trump claimed.

Trump in his Wednesday post also asked whether Smith, who was appointed by Merrick Garland last fall to oversee the DOJ’s investigations into the former president, has “been seen in the area of the cocaine” and said the special counsel “looks like a crackhead to me.”

Ironically, Trump's former press secretary did not agree with her old boss' assessment. Again, from The Hill:

Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany threw cold water on the suggestion the cocaine found at The White House over the holiday weekend could have belonged to Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

“For it to be Hunter Biden, he left on Friday, he was at Camp David. There is no way, it is inconceivable to think cocaine could sit for a 72-hour period [at The White House], so I would rule him out at this point.” McEnany, who is a Fox News host, said Thursday on the network’s flagship morning talk program.

From CNN's report yesterday at the White House:

The substance was found near where guests are asked to leave their cell phones before proceeding into the West Wing. Those tours typically only occur on weekends.

Sources had previously described the substance as a white powder found in a small, zipped bag. It was found by Secret Service personnel conducting routine rounds of the building.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday the White House is confident the Secret Service will “get to the bottom” of the incident. She confirmed the cocaine was discovered in a “heavily traveled area” of the West Wing that visitors, as well as staff, pass through.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation and “everything we know so far,” Jean-Pierre said, noting the Secret Service was conducting an investigation. “We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,” she said.

She said tours of the building recently occurred on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But asked whether it was a working theory that a tour guest was the culprit, she demurred.

“It is where visitors to the West Wing come through,” she said. “I’m not going to speculate on who it was.” 

A federal law-enforcement official told CNN that additional tests being done on the bag include DNA and fingerprint analysis.

The Secret Service, the official said, is doing “everything possible” to try and identify who brought what the official described as a “dime-sized bag” into the West Wing. The official noted that identifying the culprit may be difficult because of the size of the bag and the number of people who would have had access to the area.

The Secret Service is going through visitor logs, surveillance video,  and relying on the analysis of the bag to try to advance their investigation, the official explained.

Colorado Web designer's case based on fake "facts" exposes a U.S. Supreme Court with justices who can't tell when they are the victims of a courtroom con game

Lorie Smith, of 303 Creative

 

What happens when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling is based on a fraud? That question is hanging in the air after 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the case where a Colorado Web designer sued because, in essence, she does not want to do wedding Web sites for same-sex couples.

Lorie Smith, the designer, won her case before the nation's highest court. But she now finds  herself in a legal pickle. That's because it appears no one asked Smith to design a Web site for a same-sex couple. That means she suffered no cognizable legal harm, which means she had no standing to sue. And, as Amanda Marcotte of Salon points out, that means her case was a fraud from the outset.

Americans are left with a Supreme Court that not only has plummeting public standing after a string of unpopular and controversial rulings, it can't even tell when it's being played. In a commentary titled "'Fraud "justice': Anti-LGBTQ decision based on a fake case showcases the Supreme Court's illegitimacy; Far-right lawyers created a phony "victim" in made-up case — and the justice with the stolen seat wrote the opinion." Marcotte says the Supreme Court is getting exactly what it deserves:

For a brief moment this summer, after the Supreme Court declined to overthrow democracy and invite Donald Trump to steal the 2024 election, there was a surge of hope that the six justices appointed by Republican presidents were starting to dial back their radicalism in the face of the massive public backlash. For years, the Supreme Court has enjoyed a measure of undeserved goodwill from the public, mostly because people don't pay close attention and assume the court is still in the business of upholding human rights instead of decimating them.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, however, voters started to wake up to the fact that a well-funded right-wing movement, led by the Federalist Society, had stacked the court with a bunch of hacks who care little for law or precedent. Added to the pile were well-publicized stories highlighting the corruption of justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who shamelessly enjoy free vacations funded by right-wing billionaires. The result is that only 31% of voters approve of the Supreme Court, according to an NBC News poll, which is down from 44% in January 2021.

Well, any hope that the court has moderated itself was dashed late last week, with a series of decisions that weren't just awful but involved the conservative justices thumbing their noses at any law, precedent, or even facts that got between them and their preferred far-right policies.

On Thursday, the court overruled 50 years of precedent to decide that affirmative action in college admissions is illegal.

On Friday, the court doubled down its attacks on equal education by ruling against President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness program. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, "the court today exceeds its proper, limited role in our nation's governance," by simply ignoring a law passed by Congress because conservatives don't like it.

But for the case that most exquisitely illustrates the illegitimacy of the current iteration of the Supreme Court, we should turn to 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. This case is a straight-up fraud from every angle and had no business even being before the Supreme Court. To begin with, it's a redux of a 2018 case, Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado, which addressed a baker who violated Colorado's ban on anti-LGBTQ discrimination by refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The case was brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a right-wing group demanding that Christians have the privilege to opt out of anti-discrimination laws. ADF lost its case. 

That should have been the end of it, but ADF wanted another bite at the apple. Not because any facts or laws had changed, but because the make-up of the court had, due to Donald Trump getting two more nominees, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, on the bench.

Did the right-wing barristers at ADF get a tad overzealous? It looks that way, reports Marcotte:

But what makes this clown show even worse is that the complaint at the heart of 303 Creative v. Elenis is completely made up. In Masterpiece, there really was a baker who really did discriminate against a gay couple, creating both standing and a fact pattern to discuss in court. With 303 Creative, however, the "facts" justifying the case are all make-believe. The plaintiff, Lorie Smith, sued on the grounds that she doesn't want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. But no one had actually requested that she do so, for one simple reason: She didn't make wedding websites. Her lawsuit was purely hypothetical. Legally, she shouldn't have had a right to sue at all. 

To get around the fact that their client had no right to sue, ADF claimed she had received an inquiry from a man named "Stewart" who had some vague questions about maybe hiring 303 Creative in the future for a wedding to "Mike." But it appears that the entire story may be fabricated. Melissa Gira Grant of The New Republic contacted Stewart, using the email and phone number included in the lawsuit. He denies having sent that request, pointing out that he is already married, to a woman. 

"The initial lawsuit did not mention the 'Stewart' inquiry, which was submitted to Smith's website on September 21, according to the date-stamp shown in later court filings, indicating that she received it the day after the suit was originally filed," Grant writes. What a remarkable coincidence! How fortunate that this alleged request came in right as ADF needed to shore up their dubious claim that their plaintiff had any business in court at all.

So what gives? It's unlikely that ADF was having trouble finding Christian business owners unwilling to discriminate against gay couples in the real world. Assholes are a dime a dozen, after all. But it is worth pointing out that Masterpiece Cakeshop wasn't just a legal loss for ADF, but bad public relations, as well. By adopting a real case, they put human faces on the issue, both in terms of the baker, Jack Phillips, and the couple he refused service to, Charlie Craig and David Mullins. The public could see that the real victims here were Craig and Mullins, two perfectly nice guys who got a faceful of hate when they were innocently shopping for a wedding cake. Phillips, however, came across as a jerk. 

With 303 Creative, however, the offense is hypothetical. There are no actual victims to feel sorry for. Granted, any video of Smith erases all doubt that the woman is a smug and despicable Karen, unsurprisingly.

Still, without a real gay couple to talk to reporters, it allowed ADF to present an entirely one-sided narrative. Bigotry is less upsetting to people when it's abstract.

But it also should have meant that the court rejected her case out of hand since it's built on a sandcastle of lies. As Vox's legal expert Ian Millhiser wrote, "federal courts, including the Supreme Court, do not have jurisdiction to decide hypothetical cases." That they didn't is yet another sign of how much this isn't just a Republican court, but a MAGA one, only too happy to adopt Donald Trump's tactic of using "alternative facts" to bolster their case when the actual facts won't do it.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor draws attention to this shadiness, by pointing out the many real-world examples of what happens when discrimination against LGBTQ people is legal. It's a reminder this isn't an abstract issue about "religious belief," but a serious threat to the well-being of real people. From the Sotomayor dissent:

Five years ago, this Court recognized the “general rule” that religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage“do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.” Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9). The Court also recognized the “serious stigma” that would result if “purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons” were “allowed to put up signs saying ‘no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’ ”Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12).

Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website-design company from a state law that prohibits the company from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if  the company chooses to sell those websites to the public. The Court also holds that the company has a right to post a notice that says, “ ‘no [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’ ” Ibid

The high court probably did not need another embarrassment on its plate, but it got one anyway -- and it can thank U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for this one. Writes Marcotte:

It's fitting that the author of the shameful opinion is Justice Neil Gorsuch, who is only on the court because Republicans literally stole his seat for him. By all rights, that seat should belong to Merrick Garland, who is currently the attorney general, because he was nominated in 2016 by President Barack Obama. But then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., illegally refused his duty to hold hearings for Garland. Instead, he held the seat open, in direct violation of the Constitution, until Donald Trump got into office and placed Gorsuch there instead.

This isn't even the first opinion Gorsuch has written based on made-up "facts." Last term, Gorsuch ruled in favor of a football coach who wanted to lead prayers at a public high school, in direct violation of the First Amendment. To get to the desired outcome, Gorsuch flat-out lied about the situation. Gorsuch claims the coach merely "offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied." That, and this cannot be stated firmly enough, is a lie. As Sotomayor noted in her dissent, the coach actually held showy prayers at the 50-yard line during games. He made such a spectacle that "[m]embers of the public rushed the field to join Kennedy, jumping fences to access the field and knocking over student band members." She even included helpful pictures, which is unusual in a dissent, to illustrate what a lying liar Gorsuch is.

Many of this term's Supreme Court decisions are indefensible when it comes to law and precedent. 303 Creative takes it to the next level, however, being a fake case that was decided by a fraudulent judge. The Supreme Court, in its current iteration, is illegitimate. What that means politically is hard to say, though ideally, it would open the door to court reform that would restore both sanity to the decisions and credibility to the court. But with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, any such reform is a pipe dream. The current situation, with a court that has no right to do what it is doing, is untenable. They've forsaken their legitimacy, and hopefully, that means soon Americans will get fed up enough to strip them of their power.

Discovery of "powdery substance" over holiday weekend at White House could be a legal headache for Hunter Biden and a political headache for his father

Secret Service agents gather to investigate powdery substance found at White House.

 

A white powder, suspected of being cocaine, was found in the White House library over the holiday weekend, raising questions if the substance belonged to first son, Hunter Biden, who has acknowledged being a recovering addict. Donald Watkins, a longtime Alabama attorney and criminal-defense expert, writes in a post at his Web site today that the discovery likely will cause fingers to point in the direction of President Joe Biden's son. Writes Watkins:

White powdery cocaine was found Sunday night in the White House Library. This is the first time in American history that recreational amounts of cocaine have been found inside the White House.

Sunday night, the discovery of an “unknown item” forced a brief evacuation of the White House and drew a Hazmat team from Washington, DC, Fire and EMS to the White House. The "unknown item" was a white powdery substance, which was tested at the scene.

The test was positive for cocaine, according to a dispatch call made that evening. “We have a yellow bar stating cocaine hydrochloride,” a D.C. firefighter stated in a radio communication at 8:49 p.m. on Sunday.

“Bag it up and take it out,” the firefighter told the Hazmat team.

From a report at Salon:

According to two law-enforcement officials who agreed to speak with the AP on the condition of anonymity, the white powder was not in any particular West Wing office. It was, however, in an area that is accessible to tour groups. Fire and emergency crews were brought to the Capitol to do a rapid preliminary field test, which reportedly identified the substance as cocaine 

Does the incident signal that Hunter Biden was snorting cocaine at the White House? Watkins addresses that question head-on:

First son Hunter Biden, who has acknowledged a prior addiction to crack cocaine, was on the White House grounds Friday before heading off to Camp David with his father for the holiday weekend.

Last month, federal prosecutors in Delaware "fixed" Hunter Biden's felony tax evasion and gun possession case in a way that spared him from going to prison.

According to a DOJ letter submitted to a Delaware federal court on June 20, 2023, Hunter Biden was charged with a “firearms offense – namely, one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(3) and 924 (a)(2) (2018).”

Section 922 is a felony “weapons” offense, as defined in the annual DOJ statistical reports.

Despite his felony gun possession charge, federal prosecutors have allowed Hunter Biden to enter a pretrial diversion program so that he can avoid a mandatory minimum 5-year prison sentence.

A review of the annual DOJ statistical reports for 2001 to 2021 shows that not one of the 185,082 “weapons” cases prosecuted during this 20-year period was referred by federal prosecutors to a pretrial diversion program.

U.S. v. Hunter Biden is the first and only time a federal offender has enjoyed this kind of preferential treatment in a felony firearms case.

Hunter Biden has been hanging out at the White House since April. He also frequently flies on Air Force One and Marine One. Hunter Biden even has his own Secret Service detail.

Photos, text messages, and other communications establish that Hunter Biden is a longtime crack-smoking drug addict. He smokes crack cocaine at his home and while driving his car.

According to Watkins, the discovery over the weekend raises some particularly disturbing questions about Hunter Biden and his admitted ties to cocaine:

Unlike plea deals in other drug cases, federal prosecutors did not require Hunter Biden to give up the name of his drug supplier as part of his plea deal.

Hunter's drug dealer is apparently still peddling cocaine in powder and crack form on the streets of Delaware and (perhaps) inside the White House.

A more disturbing question is this: Does Hunter Biden have a Secret Service agent who is fetching powder and crack cocaine from a street drug dealer and bringing it into the White House for Hunter's recreational use?

We don’t know the answer to this burning question and no federal law-enforcement agency seems to be interested in finding out the answer to this question.

Much still is not known about the discovery of white powder at the White House. But the incident has the potential to be a legal headache for Hunter Biden -- and a political headache for his father, writes Watkins:

Hunter Biden’s continued use of cocaine in any form is a violation of the conditions of his pretrial release. However, nobody inside of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice seems to care about this violation.

The DOJ has babied, pampered, and protected Hunter Biden throughout its criminal investigation of him. Hunter Biden has shown all Americans that he is above the law.

Now we know that Hunter Biden can smoke crack cocaine and snort powder cocaine whenever and wherever he wants. Hunter Biden will not face serious consequences for engaging in felonious conduct. Hunter Biden can do as he pleases.

After all, Hunter Biden is America’s First Son.

A Black man from Alabama, with a career of almost 50 years in the law, advises his grandchildren to pursue a kind of "affirmative action" that no court can take away

Donald Watkins (center) and his children

A Black man from Alabama, with a career of almost 50 years in the legal profession, advises his grandchildren on July 4, 2023, not to place their hopes on the "affirmative action" that can be taken away by a scandal-plagued U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, Donald Watkins encourages the upcoming generation to pursue a different kind of "affirmative action," the kind exemplified by the extraordinary achievers in their family tree. In an open letter published today at his Web site, Donald Watkins reminds his grandchildren to look to their forebears for "affirmative action" that has a powerful and lasting impact -- the kind no one can take away from them. Writes Watkins:

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court banned affirmative action for black students in college and university admissions programs.

Affirmative action for marginally qualified white students who are admitted into these colleges and universities under legacy admissions programs was left intact.

Do not despair. As a family, we have never depended on the fickle generosity of third parties, or the lowering of performance standards, or the political machinations of a machete-wielding Supreme Court.

The Watkins bloodline has always stressed educational excellence, brainpower, goal setting, focus, perseverance, patience, financial independence, and hard work to secure and protect our future in American society. These are the only tools that have consistently worked in the face of never-ending impediments to our inclusion in the socioeconomic progress of this nation.

Our family mantra is simple. Once a Watkins student enters any classroom, first place is taken by him/her. We will outthink, outwork, outperform, and outlast any competitor or adversary.

The Watkins family does not complain whenever we are cheated out of victories that rightfully belong to us, or whenever we are "railroaded" in contests by biased officials. These situations occur often in life. You can count on them like you can count on bad weather.

We use cheating, railroading, and racial discrimination as fuel for our passion and mission in life.

Where can the upcoming generation turn for inspiration? Watkins provides a  roadmap:

By studying the family values that my paternal grandparents, John Adam and Sallie Emma Watkins, instilled in their children and grandchildren, you will see the tangible results that flow from the Watkins brand of “affirmative action."

Adam and Sallie Watkins

My lessons on manhood came early. John Adam Watkins, whom we called Adam Watkins, taught me what he imparted to his sons – “God made you a man, so be a man.” There is nothing ambiguous about who we are or what we stand for.

Adam and Sallie Watkins lived in Clarksville, Tennessee in the 1950s. Adam Watkins gave me my first summer job – a plumber’s apprentice -- and my first paychecks. He ran the biggest plumbing company in town. Granddaddy Watkins had mostly white customers, and he lived on Main Street. Adam Watkins taught me that the ability to render a first-class, high-quality business service transcended race.

Adam Watkins

Sallie Emma Watkins handled the company's money and kept its financial books and records. She was strong, smart, and kind. She was Adam's' life partner in every way.

In 1962, I also watched the Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Clement come to granddaddy Watkins’ home and request his political support at a time when only a small number of blacks in the state had the courage to register and vote in Tennessee elections prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Adam and Sallie Watkins, who were born in 1890 and 1896, respectively, feared no man and were respected by all men and women.

The next stop on the family roadmap includes a fruitful chapter in Alabama:

Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr.

Dr. Levi Watkins, Sr., was the oldest of Adam and Sallie Watkins’ five sons and two daughters. He was also my father. He was the strongest and smartest man I have ever known.

When my father was a child, he was not allowed to attend the “white” school in his small Kentucky community. He walked alone to the “colored” school in Cadiz, which was six miles away. Father passed the local “white” school twice each day. Sometimes, he was wet and cold. And sometimes, his feet were numb from walking in the snow and sleet of winter. To attend school, my father had no choice. He grew to hate racism, but not the innocent children in the “white” school he passed each day.

Adam and Sallie Watkins taught my father how to be morally strong, how to be fair, and how to be concerned about the plight of African-Americans in the segregated South.

Dr. Levi Watkins served as president of Alabama State University from 1962 to 1981. He took a small, neglected, all-black state college in Montgomery, Alabama, from an unaccredited status in 1962 to full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1966. It was the second time my father had accomplished this feat in a four-year period. The first time occurred in the 1950s when father served as president of Owen Junior College in Memphis, Tennessee.

Lillian Bernice Varnado Watkins was my father's wife, best friend, spiritual leader, my role model for a woman, and personal hero. Together, they taught me how to be a strong man, how to respect women, how to deal effectively with bullies and bigots, and how to stand up for what is right, even when I had to stand by myself.

As was the case with Adam and Sallie Watkins, my father and mother groomed each one of their three daughters and three sons to become loving and caring community leaders. They loved to inspire, motivate, educate, and support the younger generations. To them, education excellence was the surest pathway to a better life. But, the pursuit of this excellence must start in K-12 schools.

The Watkins family name wound up making a major imprint on the world of medicine:

Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr.

On May 29, 1966, The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) published an article announcing the acceptance of the “first Negro ever accepted by Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine.”

His name was Levi Watkins, Jr. He was my oldest brother.

Even though Levi was accepted at other prestigious medical schools around the nation, he was denied admission to The University of Alabama’s medical school in Birmingham in 1966.

Levi’s experience at Vanderbilt was challenging. While he mastered the academic course of study with ease, Levi caught pure hell from fellow students who resented his presence at the medical school.

Levi’s worst experience came when he exited his dormitory one day, and someone emptied a full can of garbage on him from a second-floor window. He returned to his room, quickly cleaned himself up, and hurried to class. Nothing these students did to Levi ever broke his spirit or focus on graduating with honors.

After graduation, Levi began his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. There, he became chief resident of cardiac surgery, acting as the first African American chief resident at the university. Levi eventually would become a world-famous heart surgeon and associate dean at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

In 1975, Levi continued the pioneering medical research on the implantable defibrillator that had been started by Drs. Michel Mirowski, Morton Mower, and William Staewen. In February 1980, Levi implanted the first defibrillator at a time when many white Johns Hopkins University Hospital cardiac patients did not want a black heart surgeon, who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, to perform life-saving surgery on them. Levi overlooked their bigotry, loved them as human beings, and saved their lives anyway.

More than 3 million people worldwide are walking around with implantable defibrillators that were developed by the pioneering medical research of Drs. Michel Mirowski, Morton Mower, William Staewen, and Levi Watkins, Jr. The device, which detects arrhythmias in the heart and emits an electric charge to correct them, prevents sudden death from an irregular heartbeat.

Levi’s motto in life was this simple phrase: “Let your work speak for you .... and you’ll never have to say anything about yourself.”

Levi's journey from "VU Med School Get's 1st Negro" to the dedication of The Levi Watkins, Jr. M.D. Outpatient Center at Johns Hopkins Medical Center on June 8, 2023, has been an amazing experience for our family.

Over a career of almost 50 years, Alabama lawyer Donald Watkins has seen good and bad police officers, but a hero emerged from mall shooting in Allen, TX

Aftermath of a mass shooting at outlet mall in Allen, TX

A longtime Alabama attorney, with a mixed history of interactions with law-enforcement officers, says one officer -- whose name has not been released to the public -- truly deserves to be called a hero. Through a legal career of almost 50 years, Donald Watkins has learned that the "thin blue line" can include officers who are both good and bad. An officer who definitely falls into the good category is the one whose swift and decisive actions brought a a close to a mass shooting in Allen, TX. Watkins has found deep inspiration in the officer's life-saving actions, noting that this man represents the best his profession can offer.

Under the headline "My Newest Hero is the Unnamed Police Officer in Allen, Texas," Watkins writes:

In today’s self-centered and fickle society, so many individuals seek unearned fame and glory for doing nothing out of the ordinary. Then, there are the true heroes -- those who stand head and shoulders above the rest of us.

One of them is an unnamed Allen, Texas police officer. He is not seeking fame or glory. He is not paid hundreds of millions of dollars for throwing, catching, or running a ball in a football game. He has no fear of danger. He is kind and gentle, but he is also trained to kill active shooters.

This hero is paid a meager police officer’s salary to protect lives and promote public safety in Allen, Texas. He makes less than an equipment manager on an NFL team.

Without hesitation, this police officer ran towards an active shooter at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas on May 6, 2023, when everybody else was running away from danger. The shooter killed 8 innocent people and wounded 7 others before this officer stopped the killing spree.

In the span of three and a half minutes, this unnamed officer went from talking to a mother and her two little children in the mall's parking lot about the importance of wearing seat belts to taking down an active shooter. When he heard the first shots fired, this officer grabbed his long gun and ran toward the zone of danger. He killed the shooter while this cold-blooded murderer was still firing his assault rifle at innocent victims.

What is more, we got to see this police officer in action, from start to finish, courtesy of a body-cam video that was released last week by the Allen, Texas,  Police Department. The video is gut-wrenching, emotionally draining, and inspirational at the same time. (The video can be viewed at this link.)

This officer’s run towards danger was more valuable than any dash to the end zone during a Super Bowl game. Yet, he will not be showered with a parade, or contract extension, or a visit to the White House. He will not get a salary hike or a big bonus check for doing his job that fateful day.

None of those things motivated this unnamed police officer to spring into action at the outlet mall on May 6th. Stopping the massacre motivated him.

This police officer makes me very proud to be an American. He represents the best among the nation’s police officers. He’s one of the “good ones."

Perhaps Watkins has special appreciation for the Texas policeman because he has seen, in an up-close way, that officers come in both good and bad varieties. In fact, Watkins describes his experiences with police as "diverse and impactful":

My early experiences with police officers were very different from the one depicted at the beginning of the body-cam video of the Allen police officer. That officer was kind, warm, and gentle with a mother and her two children as he discussed the importance of seats belts.

As a 12-year-old boy in 1960, I watched a White Montgomery police officer verbally abuse my mother during a routine traffic stop in our all-Black neighborhood. The officer threatened to kill my mom for simply asking basic questions about this traffic stop. During his tongue-lashing, the officer told my crying mother that the “MUN” (which stands for “municipal”) preceding the numbers on the license plate of his motorcycle stood for “Murder U Niggers." The officer did not care that he was abusing my mother in front of her young son.

From 1974 to 1985, my life was routinely threatened by White police officers because of my aggressive prosecution of landmark court cases that challenged excessive police violence against unarmed black citizens in cities across Alabama. The worst threats came during my handling of a wrongful-death case against the Montgomery police department (MPD) involving the fatal shooting of Bernard Whitehurst.

On December 2, 1975, Whitehurst was shot and killed by Montgomery police officer Donnie Foster. The MPD claimed that Whitehurst was a fleeing felon who fired shots at Foster while facing him in a crouched position in the backyard of an abandoned house. My investigation revealed that Whitehurst was an innocent unarmed black man who had been shot in the back while attempting to climb over a fence. The pistol found beside Whitehurst’s body was a “throw down” gun that was “planted” by police after his death. Within minutes after the shooting, a voice on the police radio screamed, “We done shot the wrong nigger.”

The Whitehurst case evolved into a national police scandal that The Washington Post called “Alabama’s Watergate” in an April 3, 1977, two-page feature story. The scandal resulted in the resignations of the city's mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers for perjury, and the firing or resignation of eight others.

Watkins has fought in court against racial discrimination and excessive use of force in police departments:

In 1975, I represented Sidney Williams, a Black corporal in the MPD who sought a promotion to the rank of sergeant. His promotion was blocked by the MPD’s intentional use of racially biased promotional tests. Every officer above the rank of corporal was White.

Corporal Williams sued the MPD to stop its use of discriminatory promotional tests. We won Williams’ case, and the exams were scrapped for the next 10 years. This landmark court victory cleared the way for a wave of deserving black officers to rise through the ranks of the MPD, all the way up to the rank of police chief.

Williams retired as a major in the MPD and later served as chairman of the Alabama Pardons and Parole Board until his retirement in 2007.

In 1983, an out-of-state Black family was mourning the death of their mother/grandmother on Todd Road in Montgomery when two White police officers mistook the Michigan and Ohio mourners' license plates as a gathering of out-of-state drug dealers. Unbelievably, these officers raided the funeral gathering on a no-knock basis and violence erupted in and around the home as the occupants “stood their ground”. The officers, who were believed to be home invaders, were shot and subdued during the ensuing melee inside the home.

Eleven of the mourners were subsequently arrested and four of them were viciously beaten while in police custody. My investigation into this matter as a Montgomery city councilman resulted in the reduction of felony criminal charges to misdemeanors in four of the cases and the dismissal of all charges in the remaining eight cases.

Throughout the Bernard Whitehurst, Sidney Williams, and Todd Road cases, I received a barrage of death threats. These paradigm-shifting cases produced positive changes within the MPD for two reasons.

First, former Montgomery County DA Jimmy Evans, who was White, was an exceptional prosecutor who exhibited tremendous courage and bravery by investigating and prosecuting crooked police officers. Unlike many gutless prosecutors today, Evans held police officers accountable for breaking the law.

Second, a cadre of good police officers, both black and white, covered my back, protected my family, and provided me with the vital evidence I needed to expose the widespread police misconduct in those cases.

As a lawyer, Watkins also has defended police officers who were accused of wrongdoing:

In 1982, I defended Uniontown police lieutenant Sammy Plummer, who is White, in a wrongful-death case brought by the family of David White, a Black suspect who died in a 1981 shootout with Plummer during an attempted arrest. Plummer was shot several times during the incident.

After a hard-fought and emotionally charged trial, a mostly Black Perry County jury cleared Plummer and the city of Uniontown of wrongdoing in David White’s death.

Lt. Sammy Plummer’s case was the first time in Alabama history that a black civil-rights attorney defended a white police officer who had been accused of using deadly force against a Black suspect. My defense of Lt. Plummer generated a lot of controversy and criticism against me in the state’s Black political circles. I did not care because Lt. Plummer was a great person and a fine police officer.

From 1985-1998, I routinely defended Birmingham police officers while serving as special counsel to Birmingham mayor Richard Arrington, Jr. During this period, I also worked closely with White and Black police officers to solve a host of heart-wrenching violent crimes in Birmingham, including the 1994 execution-style murders of five innocent victims at the Changing Times Lounge. At the time, this massacre was the largest mass murder in Birmingham’s history.

Watkins has found that police officers, like members of many other professions, come in certain categories:

During my decades of very diverse and personal interactions with a multitude of White and Black police officers in Alabama, I have learned that police officers fall into two distinct groups -- “good ones” and “bad ones.” Police officers like Lt. Sammy Plummer, Major Sidney Williams, the Black and White MPD officers who helped me expose the Whitehurst and Todd Road police cover-ups, and the unnamed Allen, Texas, police officer who took down an active shooter are the “good ones.” They acted to protect and serve our communities on an unselfish basis.

Police officers like Donnie Foster, the two Todd Road home invaders, and the ones who, in recent years, have senselessly killed unarmed, non-violent African-Americans during routine traffic stops and simple misdemeanor arrests fall into the category of “bad officers.” However, these officers represent less than one tenth of one percent of all police officers in America.

As a nation, we must value, protect, and support the “good ones,” while quickly repudiating and punishing the misconduct of the “bad ones.”

To the unnamed police officer in Allen, Texas, “Thank You!” Very few officers in America could have neutralized that deadly threat in three and a half minutes. Yours, was truly a remarkable act of bravery.