ALABAMA: AL Fan Arrested For Teabagging Assault On Unconscious Man

Towleroad reports:

Last weekend, Brandon posted a sick video of a mob of Alabama fans taunting and harassing an unconscious LSU fan at a Krystal fast food restaurant on Bourbon Street in New Orleans following the game. The video, since removed from YouTube, showed the Alabama fan, now identified as Brian Downing, teabagging the unconscious fan’s face.

Downing has now been arrested. Turns out he was the second cousin of the Russell County Sheriff, the Times Picayune reports:
Detectives met Downing, 32, at his attorney’s office in Mid-City and then took him to Central Lock-Up, where he was booked with one count of sexual battery and one count of obscenity.
Earlier in the day, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor, who said he is a second cousin to Downing, said he personally spoke with the NOPD sex crimes detective handling the case about whether to arrest the man or send him to New Orleans for questioning.
Although he’d heard about the video — which has created a firestorm on the Internet — for a couple days, Taylor said he watched it Thursday morning at the prompting of other people who suggested the University of Alabama fan was his relative. The man in the video indeed appeared to be Downing, he said.

There’s no fun in it if both ain’t liking it. This is so wrong on so many levels.

ALABAMA: State’s Xenophobia Gets Its First High-Profile Victim, German Mercedes-Benz Executive Arrested

ThinkProgress reports:

• Alabama’s economy is suffering because of HB 56, the state’s draconian immigration law, as workers flee out of fear. State Sen. Scott Beason (R), who sponsored the anti-immigrant bill in the Alabama legislature, once called it a “jobs bill,” but the state’s immigration law is leaving entire industries withoutenough workers instead.
• And the extreme law, which legislators are now reconsidering, could seriously damage the state’s reputation as well after police arrested a German Mercedes-Benz executive last week under the immigration law. Mercedes opened its first American manufacturing plant in Vance, Alabama in 1993, spurring a trend of foreign car makers and suppliers opening factories in the state. They may be rethinking that decision, however, after one of their German executives was arrested for simply not having his passport with him:
• Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.
• The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.
• The length of his detainment and the status of his court case weren’t immediately known.
• Bentley…called the state’s homeland security director, Spencer Collier, after hearing of the arrest to get details about what had happened, Collier said in an interview.
• “Initially I didn’t have them, so I called Chief Anderson to find out what happened,” Collier said. “It sounds like the officer followed the statute correctly.”
• Before Gov. Robert Bentley (R) signed HB 56, drivers who did not have a license were given a ticket and court summons, Collier said. “If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn’t be arrested like this,” he told the AP.
• In October, the New York Times speculated in an editorial that despite best efforts to recruit foreign automakers to Alabama, the state was now “infamous as a regional capital of xenophobia.” And if the immigration law scared away a manufacturer like Mercedes, which employs about 2,800 Alabamians, or Hyundai, which announced anexpansion at its Montgomery, Alabama plant in May, would only compound the state’seconomic woes. The unfortunate arrest of a visiting Mercedes executive only underscores the damage Alabama’s harmful anti-immigrant law will continue to do to the state’s economy — and its reputation.
• UPDATE: Reuters reports that the Mercedes executive is Detlev Hager. In an email to ThinkProgress, Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman Felyicia Jerald said the company was not commenting on any link between this incident and the state’s immigration law and called the arrest an “unfortunate situation.” She added, “Mercedes-Benz will take steps to educate our visiting business guests and employees stationed in the U.S. of the documentation requirements for the State of Alabama.”

ALABAMA: Gov Signs Anti-Immigrant Bills

Joe.My.God. reports:

In Alabama it’s now a crime to “knowingly give a ride” to an undocumented immigrant. It’s also a crime to enroll your undocumented child in public schools. And cops are now permitted to research the immigration status of any person stopped for any reason.
Gov. Robert Bentley said the law is the nation’s toughest, and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center agree. The groups say they plan to challenge it. The legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mary Bauer, said Thursday that she expects a lawsuit to be filed before the provisions of law are scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1. “It is clearly unconstitutional. It’s mean-spirited, racist and we think a court will enjoin it,” Bauer said. Bentley, who campaigned on passing the toughest anti-illegal immigration bill possible, said he believes the measure can withstand legal challenges.

Gay Preacher PWNS Haters

Joe.My.God. comments:

Clip description:

The Gay Preacher: A small group of Christian radicals came to Auburn University screaming at the students about how the are living unholy lives and how they are all going to hell, the students decided to respond back to the radicals.

I love that he quotes the scripture of RuPaul.

I ain’t religious but this is awesome. and Amén to that!