Oh, That Mayor of Ours!

I stole this picture from the Birmingham Weekly, it's just so excellent, it was worth stealing. I hope they don't mind.


Larry Langford is at it again. He's actually always at it. I don't know exactly how to put IT into words, but he does a pretty good job in the video below. He's just learned of the Security and Exchange Commission filing a civil lawsuit in federal court against Bill Blount, Al Lapierre, and himself. The Justice Department is working on another case that would land them some jail time. The suit intends to have the men repay money they made off the brilliant bond swaps that has Jefferson County in borderline bankruptcy. This is a pretty serious filing and this is what Langford thinks of it:

This video was also posted by the Birmingham Weekly. I'm not sure who shoots their videos, but my guess is Kyle Whitmire. I really enjoy his work.

Larry Langford is a real gem. To learn more about how absolutely blatantly corrupt he is, look here. I don't want to go into the whole backstory, Kyle Whitmire does an excellent job of it already. But in order for anyone who has not been blessed with knowledge of Larry to be able to grasp the irony here, then let me say that it stems from his outrageous spending and personal debt, much of which is part of the SEC inquiry and lawsuit. Let's just say that those beautiful teeth of his cost somewhere in the realm of $75,000, or at least he told the SEC he borrowed that money for dental reasons because, "I broke some stuff in my face." He racked up $70,000 worth of credit card debt and had maxed out all his cards during the same time that he claimed he had the dental difficulties. That all out on the table - the video below is a joint effort by Larry Langford and Wachovia to teach kids about saving money by giving away free money in money machines. Who better to teach anyone about saving money than Larry P. Langford? My coworker Matt went with a camera and made an excellent video portraying the event.



Now, if that wasn't enough, he used city funds ( he claims it was from his own pocket, but i'm calling b.s.) to hold a prayer rally to pray for our poor city. Our county is close to bankruptcy, our violent crime rate is staggering, and the city is dying inside - so what does the mayor do? He decides the best form of action is prayer. He hires christian speakers to travel to Birmingham and scream at us about how our city is burning in hell( all of which, I'm sure he paid to speak). He annointed the citizens who participate with ash and draped a sakcloth over them while they stood under pictures of the city skyline reading "A City Not Foresaken." The woman who gave me my sakcloth was speaking in tongues during a city sanctioned event. Take a look:


The power of prayer will trump all, especially when it's coming from such a good man.