The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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The International Space Station (ISS) is now showing unacceptable signs of age and decay. Maintaining it is becoming increasingly costly. As a result, NASA and others are planning to retire it by 2030 or 2032 with a controlled de-orbit into the depths of Point Nemo at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This is not just a stupid idea. It is also dangerous. It is an absolute no-brainer. Just because the ISS is retiring does not mean it is a worthless piece of junk to just throw away. Nearly all of...
After I finished my book, Union At All Costs: From Confederation to Consolidation, I was asked who I more fully understood and respected. My answer was Jefferson Finis Davis. First of all, to say Davis was a reluctant president is an understatement. Indeed, even in the mid-1800s individuals who based their beliefs on the original intent of the Federal Republic had diminished. In a modern context, Ron Paul has been the closest thing to the “original republicans” in that he understands the vol...
The recent US Supreme Court decision triggered many to (re)read the September 2025 Gazette column:https://www.alabamagazette.com/story/2025/09/14/opinion/gerrymander-proliferation-and-constitutional-dtente/7816.html. SCotUS vacated the stay on Alabama's 2023 Congressional map May 11. Governor Ivey called a special primary for August 11. The 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th Districts will use the map State legislators drew before the federal three judge panel threw it out. Republicans tout the order a win...
Some understand the hegemonic foundation of Morrill Land Grant Institutions designed to capture ag and mechanical arts intelligentsia. A land grant is a covenant with the people of a State... not with donors who flaccidly purchase building names on those lands. Auburn's covenant runs to every Alabamian inside the State's borders, including the roughly 28,000 souls in our Alabama Department of Corrections. Long-time Gazette readers are familiar with this story [most notably May 2019...
June is upon us... time to plan a productive summer for our youth. Southern Preparatory Academy is opening their 320-acre campus for two parallel summer offerings, an Academic Mini-Mester and 'Summers at Southern' Camps, each shepherded by Col. Corey Ramsby and his faculty to make June and July rewarding for attendees. SoPrep remains one of a dozen remaining prep schools in the nation with a Corps of Cadets (military) program, located at Camp Hill just off US Hwy 280 in East Central Alabama. If...
April held 'back to back' Southern Preparatory Academy (https://southernprepacademy.org/about/) events I've written much about this Spring. Friday evening's [4-24-26] 6th Annual Board of Trustees Scholarship Banquet filled the Marriott Grand National Ballroom in Opelika, where Col. Corey Ramsby addressed SoPrep's progress through its 'Winter at Valley Forge' into a strengthened cohort for the 2026-27 academic year. Video premiered at the Banquet (viewable at https://youtu.be/FapslyvFOOoo) opens...
Campaigns based on punishing public employees for their thoughts inevitably run up a tab taxpayers must bear. Coach Tommy (TuberGrubber) Tuberville built his post‐football fortune on an AU paycheck for not coaching. His social media feed is now busy building another paycheck for not teaching. Long time readers may recall Auburn's politburo does not pay these tabs; productive (non‐parasitic) Alabama taxpayers pay them. Little wonder why last year's $228 million in college coach buyouts is att...
Exactly when Montgomery, Alabama got its nickname “Monkeytown” might be lost in unrecorded history. Some people claim it started perhaps in the 1930’s or ‘40’s, when a single monkey escaped from the Oak Park Zoo’s Monkey Island and caused considerable mischief all over the local area. In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, when every trucker had a CB radio to keep in touch with the other truckers, they kept themselves informed about everything from good places to eat to the locations of the local speed traps...
Macon County has espoused indefensible interpretations of administrative, legal, and environmental laws. “Without accountability, their arrogance festers like cancer,” wrote Frank Dillman, a long-term county resident, watchdog, and now independent candidate for Macon County District 4 Commissioner, recently qualified for the November 3, 2026 election. The legislature, molded and fed by the ACCA [Association of County Commissioners of Alabama] fails to provide a resource for citizens to reg...
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler The present Iranian conflict has rekindled discussions of the Just War Theory, which can be traced at least back to Cicero, the Roman orator who lived before the birth of Jesus Christ. Chr...
In the history of the United States, and possibly in the history of the entire world, the radical Left has never hated anyone as intensely as they hate Donald Trump. The reason is obvious: he has stood as a colossus, almost singlehandedly thwarting their plans to convert our constitutional republic into a secular socialist society. Having lost at the polls and having lost in the courts, the Left now cries in desperation, “Invoke the 25th Amendment!” How would you respond? That’s pretty hard...
Legitimacy and credibility are required inputs for successful leadership; little worth to those who subjugate others in a kleptocracy. This explains much occurring at AU according to productive (non-parasitic) faculty who have contacted me after recent columns. AU's BoT installed Vini Nathan as provost in May 2023 after the original job posting stated the interim provost would be ineligible for the permanent position. Dr. Nathan was the interim provost. The Board gave her the job anyway. The...
April 2, 2026 - AUBURN, Ala. - Dismissal proceedings are underway at AU against a high-profile Professor who has publicly criticized and disciplined administrator malfeasance. The charge is reportedly "repeated acts of insubordination" - i.e., this professor voiced inconvenient things effectively enough to disturb power brokers [grubbers] enjoying substantive wealth redistributions. Proceedings were initiated by Vini (Interim-to-Permanent) Nathan, an illegitimately serving Provost whose installa...
"Defend the Guard" is proposed State-level legislation prohibiting overseas deployment of National Guardsmen to combat operations without formal congressional declaration of war. Authority to declare war is specifically assigned to Congress according to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution. Since unconstitutional creation of the National Guard (further decaying State sovereignty) the federal government has wrongfully mobilized National Guard personnel without war declarations....
On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, one week prior to almost certainly the most tragic Easter in Southern history. Joseph Johnston, Richard Taylor, and other Confederate commanders soon followed. After an unsuccessful four year effort to gain independence, the South faced a bleak future. The Union’s total war policy had added insult to injury by making war on non-combatants and property. Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant approved this strategy, which r...
Longtime readers may now look forward to seeing YellaGrubber don his white shoes and shake his ample 'junk in the trunk' to the "Chewacla Two-Step" in the ballroom of the new $350 million annex to Jordan-Hare Stadium. An AU BoT agenda item for this Friday [4-17-26] convening at the AU and Dixon Conference Center Hotel is rubber-stamping the "North Endzone Multipurpose Events Center Addition" according to administrator nomenclature. Seven stories. Roughly 300,000 square feet. A ballroom. Premium...
Look forward to this year's Scholarship Banquet at the Marriott Grand National in Opelika [https://southernprepacademy.org/scholarship-banquet/] Friday [4-24-26] to showcase The Southern's recent accomplishments and prepare for next year's cohort designed to support promising students preparing for their future. Please also mark your calendar for the following day; Saturday, April 25, 2026 for this year's RangerFest [https://southernprepacademy.org/rangerfest/] at Southern Preparatory Academy...
In an earlier writing, I suggested that the President as commander-in-chief of the armed forces has authority to engage in limited military action without a congressional declaration of war, and that a preemptive strike can be justified when the threat is instant and overwhelming and when waiting could make self-defense difficult or impossible. Trump’s deep-bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025 was justifiable on constitutional, legal, and moral grounds. But the latest strike on Ira...
In the summer of 2016, retired Alabama state trooper Joe W. Champion decided he needed a level spot to park on his steep property on Lake Jordan in Elmore County. He ordered a 12 yard truckload of unsorted road gravel from a pit near the River Parkway Toll Bridge near Prattville to fill it in. As he spread it out, he looked through the gravels for interesting rocks, like agates and chunks of petrified wood. Every once in a while since then, he gave his new gravel addditional searches. About the...
April is upon us... time for another Scholarship Banquet at the Marriott Grand National in Opelika [https://southernprepacademy.org/scholarship-banquet/] to showcase The Southern's recent accomplishments and prepare for next year's cohort designed to support promising students preparing for their future. Come hear the President's (Col. Corey Ramsby, pictured below at last year's banquet) update on moving forward out of SoPrep's 'Winter at Valley Forge'... rebuilding ranks and enrollment for the...
Rep. Troy Stubbs's House Bill 580 [HB580] promises to give Alabama public university governing boards more power over faculty. Some AU faculty forecast higher labour and legal expenses along with reduced grant revenue. Stubbs, a financial advisor from Wetumpka (on the Ways and Means Education Committee) filed HB 580 on March 5. The bill does three things: (1) strips faculty senates of any authority beyond "advisory" (2) establishes governing board control over every course taught at public...
Amy Howe's Supreme Court strikes down tariffs, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 20, 2026, 11:00 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs/ was among the first to report on the SCotUS ruling on Trump tariffs, widely viewed as unconstitutional by those with a fundamental understanding US tariff history. In their ruling on presidential power, the Supreme Court struck down disuniform tariffs President Trump wrongfully imposed via executive orders. The 6-3 vote asserted these...
The month of February venerates Valentine’s Day. A holiday (dare I type Holy Day?) evoking remembrance of executing Saint Valentine by 3rd Century Roman Emperor Claudius II for secretly marrying Christians. In similar oppressive zeitgeist, February is also known for annual Auburn University Board of Trustees [BoT] meeting in Montgomery, rather than in Auburn as usual. This year’s February BoT meeting fittingly fell on Friday the 13th and was uniquely wicked as the Trustees promoted a hos...
Recent military actions in Iran since my last SoPrep Report [https://www.alabamagazette.com/story/2026/02/23/opinion/southern-preparatory-academy-report-plowshares-to-swords-andamp-vice-versa/10169.html] illustrate yet another iteration of 'plowshares into swords' upon us. The Gazette column on Valley Forge Military Academy's closure in Pennsylvania, leaving The Southern https://southernprepacademy.org/ one of a dozen remaining prep schools in the nation with a Corps of Cadets (military)...
As Presidents Day approaches, we often ask, who was our greatest President? Perhaps we should ask a deeper question: by what criteria should our presidents be rated? Historians often rank the presidents, but being mostly left of center, they usually rate the based upon how much they expanded the scope of government, how many new government programs they ushered in, what social changes they forced upon the nation, and how many wars they brought us through. But are these the criteria that make a...
