6-20-25

There’s been a lot of news lately…..major events in the middle east, on the

domestic front, securing our southern border, supreme court decisions…..its a

target rich environment for a conservative talk show like this one…..but there is

one story that caught my attention this morning….a story that I think is significant

in many ways, and a story that actually relates to my home State here in

Alabama……Donald Trump just beat Gavin Newsom….again!....the riots in LA have

been going on now for nearly two weeks…..Newsom is resistant to the idea that

anything needs to be done, because an admission like that would just be further

proof that he is an absolute disaster as a Governor…..LA Mayor Karen Bass, the

leftwing socialist who runs one of the biggest cities in the world…..she is

determined that the world know that only part of her city is burning, not ALL of

it….okay, that makes it better…..by that logic, if there is only cancer in part of a

persons body then it’s not really as bad and it doesn’t need to be treated, I

guess…..Donald Trump has said that he is not going to sit idly by while Los

Angelino’s have their lives destroyed by rioters and looters…..so he called up the

US military…..several thousand National Guardsmen are among them….California

Guardsmen to be exact…..Gavin Newsom’s own Guard troops are being put to the

task of restoring order where their own governor won’t …..and Newsom was

ticked, and rather than try to fix the problem and stop the rioting….Newsom

decided the better plan was to sue Trump…..sue Trump and take back the

National Guard…..sure, great plan….and yesterday Newsom lost in a big way…..

Gavin Newsom just lost a major ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for

the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that President Donald Trump is likely to prevail in

his deployment of National Guard troops…..A lower Court had sided with

Newsom and tried to enjoin Trump from deploying the Guard….. Newsom and

various Democratic politicians have insisted that Trump’s order was unlawful and

that Newsom himself has to agree to any request for deployment….. The Ninth

Circuit ruled on Thursday that Newsom does not have such a veto over

deployments……So, The Ninth Circuit blocked the injunction of District Court

Judge Charles Breyer who suggested in open court that Trump was acting like

another “King George.”….this is a huge win and a validation of the law found in

Title 10 of the US Code which clearly states that whenever “The President is

unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States; the

President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard

of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion,

suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

That’s the law….and that’s what Trump did …..and its not the first time…..and it

probably won’t be the last…..Newsom could have been the hero that he tries to

pretend that he is…..but he gambled with his peoples lives….and he banked on

winning at the Courts….and he lost…..and now he slinks back to his podcast studio

to try and spin it to sound better than it is….but ain’t no way to put any lipstick on

that pig…..Newsom just got his backside handed to him on a silver platter…..

But it reminded me of how many times the National Guard has been called up to

restore order…..whether it be in the wake of a natural disaster, or to quell a riot,

or to protect and defend in the wake of 9/11….the Guard has played a huge role

in protecting citizens…..no other organization can do as much on short

notice…..but one of the most amazing, and controversial instances of the Guard

being called up to preserve life, limb and property occurred right here in

Alabama……it’s an amazing story….and amazing piece of history…..and it is

sometimes known as the Phenix City disturbance….the only instance of true

martial law on US soil since the civil war…..

Sit back and let me tell you the story……some people think that the name “Sin

City, USA” came from Las Vegas…..but it didn’t ….Sin City USA was the nickname

given to Phenix City Alabama in the early to middle part of the last century….just

across the Georgia Alabama line from Fort Benning, Phenix City was as corrupt as

they come…..organized crime controlled everything….illegal gambling halls,

bootlegging, prostitution, bribery was the order of the day, the Sheriff’s office was

in on it, the Mayor was owned by it….it was like the old Dukes of Hazzard with

Boss Hogg and Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain…..Phenix City was so corrupt and awful

that George Patton once said that he was so tired of having his soldiers getting

beat up and robbed in Phenix City bars that he’d like to take a troop of tanks in

and flatten the town…… during prohibition the largest ever federal liquor raid in

the south took place there with over a million gallons of illegal whiskey being

seized and poured into the Chattahoochee River in a single day…..elections were

rigged to make sure the crime bosses had their man in the right office…..it went

on for decades…..and the good folks suffered…..

A local Attorney named Albert Patterson was a good man,…..he hated what his

home town had become…..he knew that the state capital too often turned a blind

eye to the crime in Phenix City….so Patterson decided to run for Attorney General

of the state of Alabama and part of his campaign pledge was to clean up Sin City

USA…..unbelievably….and despite all odds….Patterson won the nomination to be

the Democrat candidate for AG which pretty much assured him that he would win

the general election…..but just a short time after winning the statewide primary

and beginning the final push to become the Attorney General of the state, with a

plan to clean up Phenix City…..Albert Patterson was assassinated in broad daylight

on the street in front of his Phenix City law firm……the city had had enough…..a

message was sent to Governor Gordon Persons letting him know that the City was

on the verge of anarchy…..the Governor ordered state law enforcement into

Phenix City but it wasn’t enough…..so he called on the federal government…..but

then he took the extraordinary step of calling in a WWII hero….Major General

Walter J. Hanna…..his nickname was Crack Hanna, a recipient of the Silver Star,

Bronze Star, and the adjutant General of the Alabama National Guard at the

time…..The Governor told Crack Hanna to get Sin City under control…..and they

did…..martial law was declared….the courts were shut down and military tribunals

took their place….the Sheriff, the Mayor, and the whole town council were

removed…..the town was run by the military for more than six months…..Crack

Hanna and his men gathered enough evidence to shut down Russell County’s

criminal organization and put the masterminds in jail…… During the clean-up

Guardsmen ran the courthouse and the city hall, raids were conducted on illegal

gambling houses with hundreds of slot machines seized….brothels were shut

down…..General Hanna later said, "It was a whole damn town of ill repute. We

uncovered 28 murders that had taken place in the previous four years, without

even an indictment, much less a conviction. Much of the time, it was cheaper –

and safer – to kill people than to buy 'em, because dead people stay dead."

In November of 1954 the first free elections in memory took place in Phenix City

with Guardsmen actually guarding the ballot boxes and supervising the

count….Phenix City was declared off limits to active military personnel from Fort

Benning and military police actually guarded several border crossings to ensure

that no one violated the order…..In six months time Crack Hanna and the 500 men

of the Alabama National Guard wiped out the crime syndicates that had ravaged

that part of the state……finally turning the city back over to civilians in 1955……for

a number of years there was a special medal that some guardsmen wore on their

dress uniform….the Phenix City Disturbance Medal…..one of the only times in

modern history when Martial law was declared and the military ran the

government of an American town…..and it all began exactly 69 years ago this

week…..

We’re nowhere near that level in LA…..LA is bad off but not like Phenix City…..but

there is certainly history (and actual law) that dictates that the National Guard is

for more than just responding to natural disasters and going to war when

called…..the National Guard is made up of citizen soldiers who will do all that they

are ordered to do keep their communities safe…..and chuckleheads like Gavin

Newsom better get their heads wrapped around it ……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way