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Gov. Robert Bentley's wife of 50 years, Dianne, today filed for divorce, saying "their marriage has suffered an irretrievable breakdown," according to court records. The couple, both 72, were married in 1965 and have four children. Alabama's First Lady files for divorce Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's wife, Diane, files for divorce citing "complete incompatibility." The filing cites "complete incompatibility of temperament" and states they have been separated since January. The filing also lists her address as Tuscaloosa and his as Montgomery. "There exists a conflict of personalities which destroys the legitimate aims of matrimony and all possibilities of reconciliation are...

It isn't hard to figure out what's driving the so-called Donald Trump phenomenon that just prompted one-quarter of America's likely Republican voters to say in a poll he's the one they want to be our commander-in-chief. What's harder to figure out is why the Trump phenomenon blindsided the Republican Party's presidential pack, the working press and the parasitic punditocracy. And why we keep being surprised every time this happens. After all, this political driving force isn't really about The Donald or his billions; and it is as old as politics itself. It's about the way things happen -- and often...

Liberal media types like Al Hunt haven't called Donald Trump a Hitler. Yet. But Judy Woodruff's husband has branded Trump a modern-day version of an iconic personification of racism. On today's Morning Joe, Hunt declared that Trump is "George Curley Wallace, 40 years later." View the video here.

Annd it came to pass that the earth turned and another campaign season spun into view and the liberal commentariat rose from its siesta to begin its usual moping about the perverse political powers wielded by the Fox News Channel. This time, the sentinel waking the commentariat to the alleged Fox menace is not a liberal but a self-described conservative, Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett, a prolific writer on politics and economics who has worked for congressional Republicans (Ron Paul and Jack Kemp), Republican presidents, (Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) and conservative and libertarian policy shops, broke with his party a...

Apple CEO and Alabama native Tim Cook had some choice words on Sunday about meeting former Alabama Gov. George Wallace when he was a teenager. Cook, the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company, spoke of Wallace during a commencement address he gave at George Washington University. According to Business Insider, the Robertsdale native told the graduating class an anecdote about visiting Washington, D.C., as a 16-year-old who had won an essay contest at school. Before leaving for D.C., Cook had the chance to go to Montgomery and meet Wallace, who was notorious for his opposition to racial...

A number of center-right and New Media outlets have noted Politico Magazine's disingenuousness in the opening photograph in its "Race and the Modern GOP" article. At the item's top is the iconic "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" photo showing onetime segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace "try(ing) to block the entry of two black students" into the University of Alabama. The aforementioned article title appears beneath the words "History Dept." The magazine is clearly trying to lead anyone not old enough to remember or anyone unfamiliar with U.S. history to believe that Wallace, who ran for president as a Democrat in...

"It's disgusting." That was Salon writer Heather Digby Parton's declaration that Southern Republicans simply don’t want minorities to vote. Hey, Heather, I'll tell you what's disgusting. Your attempt to smear Republicans as racists based on historical "facts" that are completely inaccurate starting with including a photo (after the jump) of George Wallace along with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as Republicans who supposedly wanted to suppress the vote. News flash! George Wallace, like Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd, was never a Republican. I hate to break it to you but he was a Democrat. In addition to the misleading...

An interesting glimpse at Paul Ryan’s wife, from the Washington Post: Janna Ryan, wife of Republican vice presidential pick Rep. Paul Ryan, is the poster girl for Generation X women who wanted to have it all.Ryan, 43, like many of her 40-something peers, is a stay-at-home mother with an impressive resume. She prefers her husband’s hometown, Janesville, Wis., to Washington and remains out of the political limelight.But Janna Christine Little Ryan hails from Oklahoma, a state known for its Will Rogers’s common-sense ideals mixed with a smidgen of Wild West attitude.She grew up Madill, Okla., in the southern part of...

Go ahead, call it shooting fish in a barrel. As soon as Ed Schultz mentioned at the top of his MSNBC show this evening that Alan Grayson would be a guest, you knew the former Dem congressman from Florida would say something outrageous. Sure enough, the guy who was roundly defeated last time around—but is giving it another go—delivered, claiming that Newt Gingrich is running "the most overtly racist campaign" since George Wallace. Grayson also managed to work in a reference to the Ten Commandment's prohibition of adultery. View the video here.

It might seem counterintuitive to highlight the DVD release of a biopic about one of the South's most powerful voices for segregation this close to the federal celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- not to mention days after the inauguration of our first black president. But "George Wallace," the 1997 TNT miniseries now available on DVD for the first time, is an enduring historical document and a testament to just how much progress America has made in recent decades.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Former Alabama first lady Cornelia Wallace, who threw herself over Gov. George C. Wallace when he was shot in a 1972 assassination attempt, has died in Sebring, Fla. She was 69.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Former Alabama first lady Cornelia Wallace, who threw herself over Gov. George C. Wallace when he was shot in a 1972 assassination attempt, has died in Sebring, Fla. She was 69. Wallace's cousin, Melissa Boyen, said the former first lady died Thursday from cancer. Cornelia Wallace was the niece of two-term Gov. James E. "Big Jim" Folsom. The dark-haired beauty, known simply as "C'nelia," married George Wallace on Jan. 4, 1971 – just days before he began his second term as governor. It was the second marriage for both. The union marked a merger between Alabama's two...

For those who don't remember, or for those who never knew, there were two George Wallaces who ran Alabama state government for two decades and ran for president in three national elections. There was the old George Wallace and the new George Wallace. The old George Wallace defined himself early on in 1963 at his first inauguration: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." Then there was the new George Wallace, who felt that the attempt on his life was "a message from God" to specifically "set me straight." He morphed into a racial liberal unlike any political transformation in the...

For years, Texas has been planning a privately financed super turnpike from Mexico to the Oklahoma border. But like rush-hour traffic, the plan for a Trans-Texas Corridor is only inching along. "It ran into a firestorm of controversy in Texas,” said Neal McCaleb, a former Oklahoma transportation secretary. Critics have a wide range of concerns about the corridor, which has a key stretch that would parallel Interstate 35. (Another stretch would extend from the Texarkana/Shreveport area to Mexico.) Particularly upset are landowners who may be in the corridor's path. The Texas Transportation Department calls many concerns myths. The department says,...

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- A Maryland prison system spokesman said the man who shot and wounded presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972 during a campaign stop has been released. Link: Wikipedia Entry On Bremer, '72 Shooting Arthur H. Bremer shot Wallace during a presidential campaign stop in Laurel, Md. Spokesman Mark A. Vernarelli said Bremer left the prison before sunrise Friday after serving 35 years of his sentence. Bremer, a former busboy and janitor, was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting and was sentenced to 53 years. He had been held at the medium-security Maryland Correctional Institution near Hagerstown, about...

George Wallace, Jr. revealed a poignant moment in the life of his father last week following the story that the former governor's assailant, Arthur Bremer, was to be released from prison in Maryland later this year. Wallace told Mobile Press-Register capitol reporter Brian Lyman, who first broke the story, that his father wrote Bremer in 1995 telling him that he forgave him. Lyman quoted the younger Wallace as saying…"I asked my father about it one night, and he didn't hesitate. He said, 'Oh son, if I can't forgive him, the Lord won't forgive me." Bremer, a 21-year-old bus boy and...

In these days of 24-hour news cycles churning out forgettable headlines about interchangeable celebrities of no importance, it's nostalgic to be reminded of a time when sensational news spawned complicated conspiracy theories that could be followed for years. Arthur Bremer, an emotionally troubled young busboy from Milwaukee convicted 35 years ago of attempting to assassinate segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace, will be released from prison this year. Today's reporters probably only dimly remember Bremer or the serious speculation that he could have been a patsy at the center of a criminal conspiracy masterminded by former CIA operatives working for the...

Arthur Bremer, who shot and paralyzed Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1972, will be released from a Maryland prison this year. "It appears at this point in time that Arthur Bremer will be leaving the Maryland Division of Corrections sometime in late 2007," said Mark Vernarelli, director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. "He has served all of the sentence for which he can be held." Bremer, who turned 57 this week, is scheduled for release on Dec. 16 from the Maryland Correctional Institute-Hagerstown, said Rae Sheeley, a case management specialist at the...

http://www.who2.com/arthurbremer.html 21-year-old Arthur Bremer shot Alabama governor George Wallace at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland on 15 May 1972. Arthur Bremer, 57, is due to be released after serving 35 years of the 53 year sentence for the attempted assassination of George Wallace.