Alabama

Justin “JP” Plott: Alabama Republicans and the case of missing spines

Published

3 weeks ago

May 17, 2026

Justin “JP” Plott: Alabama Republicans and the case of missing spines

Does anyone else have redistricting fatigue? It seems our Republican legislators share this sentiment. What we are currently witnessing is yet another chapter in the ongoing book of Republican inaction when it comes to Alabama politics. I once thought it was a matter of incompetence, then perhaps a lack of urgency.

However, the current redistricting issues have led me to a more cynical perspective: perhaps many of the Republicans in Montgomery are not really who we think they are.

The United States Supreme Court gave the Alabama Legislature an opportunity of a lifetime when they lifted the injunction that has forced Alabama to draw its maps based on race for years now.

Attorney General Steve Marshall, who truly is the hero of this story, understood the assignment and stepped up when needed to deliver the state one of its biggest legal victories in history. These opportunities are extremely rare, and in this political environment, conservatives cannot afford to let them pass by.

And how did the so-called conservatives in the Alabama Legislature respond? Well, they played it safe, of course, by passing an already drawn 6-1 map claiming that this was the best they could do. Settling for the path of least resistance is not leadership, it’s cowardice under the mask of fake action. If “hurry up and look busy” ever embodied a group of individuals, we saw exactly that during this last special session.

I urge the “Republicans” in Montgomery to look to their North and South. Look at Tennessee, which went from an 8-1 map to 9-0 under intense protests. You think a couple of people shouting from the gallery in the Alabama House chamber was bad?

Take a look at what transpired in the Tennessee legislature as they passed this new map. Tennessee could’ve chosen not to lift a finger and be satisfied with 8-1, but pushed through to make its state completely red. Take a look at Florida, DeSantis had a new map ready almost immediately following the SCOTUS ruling. That’s true leadership, looking ahead and preparing how to strike best. That’s called winning.

Alabama is in an even more unique position than these states, where SCOTUS essentially told us this week, “For the love, please redraw your maps!” with the removal of our injunction. And yet, our Republican legislators crossed their arms and said, “go pound sand”.

The unfortunate reality is that if they wanted to, they would. If the Republicans in Montgomery truly wanted to paint their state red, they would. If they were truly conservatives as they claim, they would bite down on their mouthpiece, put their gloves up, and go to work. Instead, they fall back on the excuse of lack of time and expect you to be satisfied with that answer. They’ll tweet out how they want a 7-0 when it’s safe, and point the finger when they underdeliver.

It seems, once again, Republicans in Alabama don’t understand the gravity of the situation. The Democrats of 2026 want to do irreversible damage to our country.

We can look at the current rise of political violence from the left and take it as a warning. If they ever come back to power, they’re coming for blood.

This doesn’t appear to hit home in Montgomery.

What they’re essentially saying is that they’re willing to send someone to Congress from this state who advocates for abortion, wide-open borders, and all of the other despicable policies of the current Democratic Party, because they want to. What other answer is there? After what has transpired and been revealed through the redistricting process, this is the only place to land.

Attorney General Marshall did what he was supposed to. SCOTUS bent over backwards to hand you this opportunity, and you didn’t just fumble it, you threw it in the stands and then claimed you won the game.

If you’re going to give refuge to Democrats in this state, just change that “R” to a “D” and call it a day. We’d have much more respect for you than we do right now.

Justin “JP” Plott is the executive producer/co-host of “The Rightside with Allison and Amie Beth” and co-owner of Rightside Media. You can find him on X @JPRightside. Watch “The Rightside with Allison and Amie Beth” every weekday from 10am-12pm CT at www.rightsidemedia.org.

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Alabama

WATCH: What commitment from 6-foot-5 TE Michael Nnabuife means for Alabama

Published

6 hours ago

June 7, 2026

Press Room

WATCH: What commitment from 6-foot-5 TE Michael Nnabuife means for Alabama

Michael Nnabuife has verbally committed to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Nnabuife is a 2027 three-star tight end. Touchdown Alabama’s Justin Smith provided a breakdown of what Nnabuife’s commitment means for the Tide in a video. The video can be streamed below:

Since 2007, Touchdown Alabama Magazine has been a top-trusted source for Alabama Crimson Tide news, notes, updates & analysis. With a team of expert writers that have combined experience of over a decade, TDA is your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with the Crimson Tide.

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Alabama

5 biggest early recruiting wins of Kalen DeBoer era at Alabama

Published

16 hours ago

June 6, 2026

Press Room

5 biggest early recruiting wins of Kalen DeBoer era at Alabama

Entering year three in Tuscaloosa, the Kalen DeBoer era at Alabama has already proven to be a memorable one on the recruiting trail.

Following the retirement of legendary head coach Nick Saban, recruiting has not slacked at all for the Crimson Tide under DeBoer, with Alabama having compiled a top three class nationally each of the last two years, per 247Sports.

The Crimson Tide appear set to do so once again this upcoming cycle as well, with Alabama off to a strong start to the 2027 class as we enter the summer months, a period that has certainly been impactful for the program over the last two years in terms of landing commitments.

A list likely to grow in the future, here are five of the biggest early high school recruiting wins of the DeBoer era in Tuscaloosa.

5. Michael Carroll commits to Alabama

One of the highest ranked recruits to commit to Alabama under DeBoer so far is Carroll, a prospect who is certainly looking to be a home run addition for the Crimson Tide entering his sophomore season. The IMG Academy (Florida) standout was considered as the nation’s No. 1 interior offensive lineman, per 247Sports, out of high school, and is set to start for the second consecutive season this upcoming fall.

4. Alabama lands top 2027 quarterback Elijah Haven

Haven’s commitment is the most recent recruiting win featured on this list, with the Crimson Tide landing the elite quarterback prospect back in April. Considered as the nation’s top quarterback in the 2027 cycle out of Dunham (Louisiana), Haven is one of the highest-rated signal callers to ever commit to Alabama, and has star potential with the Crimson Tide, should he eventually make it to campus.

3. Lotzeir Brooks commits to Alabama

One of Alabama’s biggest evaluation wins of the DeBoer era so far appears to be Brooks, a wide receiver who was among DeBoer’s first commits in Tuscaloosa out of Millville (New Jersey). Coming out of high school, Brooks was ranked as the No. 25 wide receiver nationally, per the 247Sports Composite, and the wide receiver appears set to be a major piece of Alabama’s wideout room for years to come after a big freshman season a year ago.

2. Ryan Coleman-Williams recommits to Alabama

Coleman-Williams was a long-time Alabama commit prior to his decommitment following the retirement of Saban in Jan. 2024, with DeBoer and staff eventually getting the in-state Saraland (Alabama) star to recommit a few weeks later. Despite some struggles at times a year ago, Coleman-Williams has been a star for the Crimson Tide across his first two seasons in Tuscaloosa, racking up 1,500+ receiving yards and 14 total touchdowns.

1. Alabama flips Keelon Russell from SMU

A long-time SMU commit at the time, Russell flipped his commitment from the Mustangs to Alabama back in June 2024, with the Duncanville (Texas) quarterback going on to eventually become one of the nation’s highest-ranked recruits in the 2025 class. Russell now enters his redshirt freshman season at Alabama in a competition to become the Crimson Tide’s starter at quarterback, and is considered one of college football’s top potential 2026 breakout candidates.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion.

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Alabama

Alabama’s summertime torture of Black men | STEPHEN COOPER

Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2026

Press Room

Alabama’s summertime torture of Black men | STEPHEN COOPER

What is it about the swaggering, sweltering heat of summer that stirs up so much bloodlust? By now it’s a platitude that murder and other violent crime rates rise when the weather gets hotter. And while there’s no time of year Alabama’s criminal justice and correctional systems don’t discriminate against Black people, recent years have demonstrated summertime is when Alabama especially seems to torture Black men with its racist capital punishment regime.

I wrote as much in my column “Alabama’s summer 2024 legal lynching” when I posited “it’s not officially summer in Alabama until a Black man’s been lynched — legally or illegally[.]” At the time I observed: “Alabama still has a despicable penchant for using a vestige of slavery — the death penalty — in the 21st century to subjugate and to disproportionately dehumanize its poor Black and brown condemned citizens, most of whom grew up in impoverished and hellacious homes very far from the kind of safe, stable, and suitably nurturing and loving environments many Alabama families take for granted.”

The name of that 2024 column was taken from an earlier essay I titled “Alabama’s summer 2022 legal lynching” concerning the execution of Joe Nathan James Jr.; in that 2022 piece I invoked “legendary Alabama lawyer [and Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director] Bryan Stevenson” who insists “[t]he death penalty’s roots are clearly linked to the legacy of lynching” and that “[w]e need to own up to the way racial bias and legalized racial subordination have compromised our ability to implement criminal justice.”

In that vein but perhaps more depressingly, more drearily, I expounded in the summer of 2023 in “Stopping Alabama’s addiction to torture” on how “Alabama’s addiction to torturing poor people — disproportionately Black and brown people — and more often than not, people who are severely mentally ill with inhumane correctional institutions, a dysfunctional parole system, and, in some cases, a secretive and sadistic lethal injection protocol, has been going on for so long, overwhelmingly, Alabamians and Americans are desensitized to it.”

After James was tortured, in the piece “Fascism, racism, sexism and torture: Alabama’s last execution had it all,” I implored: “Investigations should be launched immediately, and not just into the sexist jackasses ogling the outfits of female reporters, but, also, into why Alabama keeps torturing to death poor, disproportionately Black men, most of whom were condemned — as famed death penalty attorney Stephen Bright long ago observed — because they had the worst lawyer, not because they committed the worst crime.”

Fast-forward to this summer with the looming execution of another poor Black man, Jeffrey Lee. Despite lingering questions about the inequity, immorality, and inhumanity of it, Alabama is poised to execute Lee by nitrogen-gassing or “nitrogen hypoxia” sometime during a 30-hour window starting June 11 and ending June 12.

Ominously, Alabama’s last nitrogen-gassing was the October 23rd torture of yet another Black man named Anthony Boyd. Following Boyd’s execution, the New York Times reported “Witnesses described seeing Mr. Boyd convulse and heave for about 15 minutes before being pronounced dead about 15 minutes later.” The Times recounted that “Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist in Alabama who witnessed the execution, said he counted Mr. Boyd gasp for air for more than 225 times before he was pronounced dead.” Reverend Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor to Mr. Boyd who was in the execution chamber, was also reported saying Boyd was “suffocating, trying to breathe for 19 minutes.”

Alabama has savagely used nitrogen to kill seven men so far; 5 of these men were white and two were Black. Since this column is about Alabama’s torture of Black men, I want to conclude by focusing on Alabama’s first experimental nitrogen-gassing of a Black man, the February 2025 torture-execution of Demetrius Frazier. Reporter Ivana Hrynkiw who witnessed Frazier’s last minutes alive described how “About 6:11 p.m., Frazier started waiving his hands in circles toward his body. About a minute later his hands stopped moving. At approximately 6:12 p.m. Frazier clenched his face, and his nostrils flared, while his hands quivered. He appeared to say something, which was inaudible to the three witness rooms. His legs slightly lifted up off the gurney and he gasped. Then, his head rolled to the right side. Frazier exhibited sporadic gasping and shallow breathing until about 6:20 p.m. The curtains closed at 6:29 p.m., and his time of death declared seven minutes later[.]”

Adding to its extensive history of racial violence during and after slavery, the gas-torturing of Demetrius Frazier and Anthony Boyd are part of the modern-day record of Black men Alabama’s tortured to death the state will be building on if it goes forward with the nitrogen-gassing of Jeffrey Lee.

This essay was first published by The Times of Israel. It is being published here with the permission of the author.

Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public. defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. Read more of his writing at http://www.stephenacooper.net.

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