How Republicans Pray In Alabama: "Bless Our Hearts... And Other Parts"

Rachel Maddow has been covering the Alabama impeachment saga-- and for a long time. And she's doing a really good job of it. We haven't been writing much about Robert Bentley's plight because it looked like just another example of a hypocritical "family values" Republican caught in the act. "People bow to the throne." Yeah...

But there is something beyond the salacious details to note in this unfolding scandal. The Birmingham News, easily the state's biggest newspaper, wrote about a different aspect of the ugliness between Governor Bentley and his top advisor Rebekah Mason-- actually two aspects, both of which are part of everything Republican in Alabama: racism and corruption, which, together make the Alabama Republican Party go round and round. Would it surprise you to know that while she was "with" Bentley, Mason "led a politically-motivated effort in 2015 to close 31 driver's license offices in mostly black counties?" She "proposed closing multiple driver's license offices throughout the State" and asked the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to "put together a plan." Now why would a Republican scumbag (literally in this case) want to close down the DMV offices in black counties? Guess where you have to go to get ID in order to vote in Alabama. Go ahead, guess.

The closures sparked a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which determined that the stoppages disproportionately affected black residents. The DOT determined that ALEA's plans were a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The decision was another black eye for Alabama, as national civil rights leaders, such as Jackson, and dozens of black churches and community leaders mounted an opposition against the governor's stance.

Rural Alabama was hit hard by the closures, especially in the Black Belt - the region of Alabama that takes its name first from the color of its rich soil but also from the concentration of African-Americans who live there.

The NAACP, the nation's prominent civil rights organization, initiated the lawsuit which prompted the federal probe.

"We think it was damaging to the African-American community and I think it's hard to quantify the damage," said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP State Conference. "It was more political in that it would have disproportionate impact on African-Americans in being able to get the documents required to vote."

Alabama requires photo ID to vote, meaning that a driver's license is a key document which allows residents their place at the polls.

...Legislation this spring, sponsored by Sen. Hank Sanders of Selma, would require driver's license offices in the state to open at least one day a week. A similar bill, passed by both the Senate and House last year, was not signed into law by Bentley.

The closures occurred at a time when Mason had a growing influence over the governor's office, Sharman's report shows. The report will be presented next week to the Alabama Judiciary Committee, which is charged with moving forward on impeachment hearings.

As long as we're on about Republican hypocrites, let me update you on two other lurid news stories about Republican psychopaths, state Senator Ralph Shortey and Anthony Silva. Shortey was the head of the Oklahoma Trump campaign and is a fanatically anti-gay right-wing degenerate who was recently caught having sex with a 17 year old boy. When we last checked in, Sen. Shortey had just had his parking spot taken away by the Republican-controlled state legislature and was being charged with, among other felonies, paying to have sex with a minor within 1,000 feet of a church. Since then he resigned from the state Senate, making the preposterous claim that his "resignation is evidence of my respect for public service and the duties of our elected officials. I ask for the privacy of my family-- my wife and four daughters-- as I defend myself of these charges."

And Silva is the child-molesting Republican ex-mayor of Stockton and when we last checked in on his case his bail had been reduced from $1 million to $350,000, allowing him to get out of jail. The newest on this other fine exemplar of every single thing it means to be a Republican is that he's now filed a motion asking a judge to impose a long-term seal on the transcript of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment, especially interesting since he is also suspected of murdering one of his underage sex victims. He claims that making the grand jury transcript publicly available would prevent him from receiving a fair trial. The judge will hold a hearing on the motion tomorrow.

Do they look like people who would conspire to prevent black people from being able to vote? Hint: they are both Republicans