Maddox criticizes ‘insane’ arming teachers proposal during Birmingham stop

Walt Maddox is not thanking God for Mississippi.

The Tuscaloosa mayor and Democratic candidate for governor told a women’s progressive group in Tuesday he wants to raise the “standard of excellence” in Alabama.

“We are going to change the expectations in Montgomery and the outcomes,” he said at Rojo in Birmingham. “It incenses me when somebody says, ‘Thank God for Mississippi.’ That cannot be our standard of excellence. I refuse to except that as a standard of excellence. And if we continue to use that as our standard of excellence, there’s going to be no one else to thank in the near future.”

Part of his plan, Maddox said, was to declare states of emergencies in the Black Belt, north Birmingham and Eight Mile near Mobile so the governor’s office could respond to impoverished conditions and environmental disasters plaguing those areas.

“This is something we should be ashamed of,” he said of poor quality of life. “For us to just put our hands up and say, ‘Well, that’s someone else’s problem,’ that is a lack of leadership at the highest level. We’re going to go and look at insane laws like arming teachers, but we’re going to let our own people get hookworm. That’s the kind of insanity I can’t wait to stomp out.”