By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Alabama is a state in which the Democratic Party is on its death-bed. Ever since the Civil Rights Movement, the state has been in a slow drift Republican. First it stopped voting Democratic on the presidential level. Then it started electing Republicans for senator, then congressman, then state office, and finally local office.

The Democratic Party fought hard in this losing battle. As late as 2008 it had miraculously won three out of seven seats in the congressional delegation, and still held majorities in the state legislature. To be fair, many of these local Democrats were so conservative that they would be better described as “Republicans.”

The end came in 2010. Republicans won all but one seat in congress. They flipped the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, something which should have happened a long time ago. Democrats today hold no elected state office in Alabama.

There was a lot of party-switching after the 2010 elections. Many extremely conservative Democrats finally admitted that they were in fact Republicans.

In this state of affairs, something quite remarkable happened: a Republican politician, State Representative Daniel Boman, switched to the Democratic Party.

This has no effect on Alabama politics. Republicans still hold a supermajority in the chamber.

It also doesn’t appear that Mr. Boman switched for political reasons. His district is very white and very strongly Republican. He will probably lose his re-election campaign.

It thus seems that an extraordinarily rare event has occurred in American politics: a politician acting on behalf of his conscience, without any possible political gain. The Gadsden Times quotes Republican House speaker Mike Hubbard commending Mr. Boman for “formally affirming what he has likely felt in his heart for some time now.”

That is quite something. Mr. Boman seems to be a very good man, if not the wisest politician out there. This poster wishes him the best of luck in whatever his future holds.

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News from around the globe impacting our world.

The Battle for Misrata Continues. Forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi pounded the rebel held city of Misrata on Sunday, hours after the Libyan government claimed its troops had pulled back from the besieged city in order to allow tribal leaders try to negotiate a political resolution. More from the The Guardian. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports more on the use of unmanned American drones in the conflict suggesting that they may provide a "psychological edge" in the fighting.

Army Joins Crackdown in Syria. Al Jazeera reports that the Syrian Army has been called into action to crackdown on anti-government protests in the southern city of Deraa and the Damascus suburb of Douma. Communications have been cut off and, for the first time, the military has become directly involved in attempts to quell the on-going protests against the regime of Bashir al Assad.

Clashes in the South Sudan. South Sudan's army (SPLA) claimed today killing 57 militia members during Saturday's clashes in Jonglei state. The militia forces were to integrate into the SPLA before July 9 when the South will secede from the North after voting overwhelmingly to separate in a referendum and it is not clear what set off this latest round of fighting. All Africa has the full report.

Alternative Vote Referendum Strains UK Coalition. The already strained relations between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Britain's coalition government reached a new low yesterday amid an increasingly bitter campaign ahead of next month's referendum on the voting system. The story in The Independent.

Hundreds of Taliban Escape. Some 500 Taliban fighters, including some high level commanders, have escaped from a detention centre in Kandahar via a 320 meter tunnel. According to a Taliban statement the tunnel was not dug by the inmates but by fighters outside the prison. The tunnel took 5 months to complete. A full report including video from Al Jazeera.

Bill White, the Democrat with a decent chance to become Governor of Texas, has been hitting incumbent Rick Perry hard the last few days for not working very much. A recent campaign press release said stat records show "Part-Time Perry" look 15 long weekends last year. That's followed up by this video, talking to normal Texans about records showing Perry works just 7 hours a week:

What scares me about this is that if Perry was able to cause this much damage to the state in just 7 hours a week, how bad would things have been had he worked a full 40? I guess he needs the extra 33 to maintain that perfect hair helmet, though, so that's fair.

You can donate to White, who was tied with Perry 43-43 in the latest poll, at the Going On Offense ActBlue page.

There are not many union locals with an environmental organizer on staff.

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Bumped -- Jonathan... Wish I could be there, but it's the weekend immediately preceding the bar exam. Sounds great.

This morning, the MyDD-listed blog Minnesota Progressive Project broke the news that Senator Al Franken will headline be the keynote speaker at the closing evening event of this years Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas.  As the Political Director of Netroots Nation, I invite you below the fold to hear from Al and about him and invite you to join us and register for Netroots Nation.

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