Dana Milbank likens Jeff Sessions to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace for his outspoken stances on immigration policy Over the last 30 years, Jeff Sessions as a U.S. Senator and as a political nominee has faced some disgraceful attacks that have associated him with racism, particularly coming out of the media. Going back to 1986, […]

Apple Inc. (AAPL) topped Fortune Magazine’s 2013 list of the world’s most admired companies. The California tech giant maintains a rabid following while raking in record profits. Last quarter Apple posted posted $13 billion in net income, making it the most profitable company in the world during that time frame. So what does Apple do […]

“We’ve got the world’s attention,” Senator Richard Shelby told me as we launched into a discussion about his latest meetings with top business leaders overseas. Shelby recently returned to the States after visiting Toulouse and London, where he and Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran went to recruit suppliers for Airbus’s new south Alabama manufacturing plant to […]

Republican’s landmark school choice bill, the Alabama Accountability Act, will go into effect immediately, in spite of efforts by the Governor to delay it for two years. The House of Representatives around lunch time voted 57-10 to non-concur with the Governor’s executive amendment to delay the Act’s implementation, then voted 59-6 to override his veto. […]

The Alabama House of Representatives Monday morning passed the much-debated Omnibus Gun Bill, which proponents say will give Alabama the strongest Second Amendment protections in the country. It now goes to the Governor for his signature. The final bill was the product of a compromise between the National Rifle Association, The Alabama Sheriffs’ Association and […]

A Birmingham area Tea Party group is planning an IRS protest to take place Tuesday at noon outside of a Birmingham Internal Revenue Service Office. State Senator Scott Beason is expected to speak. The protest is a part of a national movement dubbed the “Rein in the IRS Rallies” by the national conservative grassroots organization […]

Monday is the final day of the 2013 legislative session. Both budgets have already passed, which would normally indicate there could be a lot of action Monday. But Senate Democrats have been using every dilatory tactic in the book lately. Whether or not much work actually gets done depends on whether or not Senate Republicans […]

Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are two of the current frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, and both showed off their fundraising chops in the first few months of this year. Doug Stafford, a top Paul aide, told the Washington Examiner last week that Senator Paul raised $1.5 million in the first […]

Senator Richard Shelby said today in an interview with Now This News that he sees a lot of similarities between the Obama Administration and the Nixon Administration. “It reminds me of the old dark days we’ve had around here,” Shelby said. “I was hoping we would never go back to this.” Here are some other […]

Governor Robert Bentley on Wednesday signed an executive amendment that would delay portions of the Accountability Act, the session’s biggest victory for Republicans, from taking effect. The Governor’s executive amendment would immediately put into effect the portion of the Accountability Act that gives schools the flexibility to opt out of certain rules and regulations, but […]

It’s mass chaos in Washington, D.C. right now. Literally one third of congressional committees are currently tied up in investigating the Obama administration. None of this is going away any time soon. From Benghazi to the IRS to the DOJ, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has the toughest job in the country right now […]

“Rumors and Rumblings” is a weekly feature that runs each Wednesday. It includes short nuggets of information that we glean from conversations throughout the week. Have a tip? Send it here. All sources remain confidential. Wiregrass Senate Maneuvering Two weeks ago in Rumors & Rumblings we discussed rumors that Dothan Young Republicans Chairman Brandon Shoupe […]

Late Tuesday afternoon, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange put out a release requesting any 501(c)(4) organizations in the state that were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service step forward and contact his office. “This situation demands full accountability from the IRS and procedures to ensure that safeguards are put in place so that this type […]

The most anticipated issues on the final day of the 2013 legislative session will include the long-debated omnibus gun bill, drug testing for welfare applicants, and the The Religious Liberty Act which would allow religiously affiliated or motivated employers to opt out of the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate. But there is one particular bill that has […]

The mainstream media has been going through a rough stretch lately. From the IRS, to Gosnell, to Benghazi, their resolve to downplay any story damaging to the President or opposed to their personal political ideology is being tested. In the process, the public’s already waning trust in their work has been even further damaged. The […]

“We want to get Washington out of the way of how you use your time,” Rep. Martha Roby said as she delivered this week’s official Republican Address, capping off a flurry of national attention as her bill, The Working Families Flexibility Act, made its way through the House. The bill, which numerous legislators before Roby […]

Remember all of those “Tea Party Crazies,” as Senator Roger Bedford calls them, who were deemed conspiracy theorists for expressing concerns that the IRS was harassing them during the 2012 election cycle? Well, apparently they were right. The IRS today admitted to inappropriately flagging conservative groups for review during the 2012 election cycle. According to […]

Yellowhammer speculated in this week’s Rumors & Rumblings that Rep. Barry Mask would be leaving the legislature to take a job at the Alabama Association of Realtors (AAR). Those rumors were confirmed yesterday as Mask was named the association’s new CEO. “After an exhaustive nation-wide search for a new CEO, we believe that we have […]

A bad session got even worse for teachers’ union leader Henry Mabry Thursday evening as he was removed from the Teachers Retirement System board. Republicans have been considering bringing the bill up for some time now. They have long characterized Mabry’s presence on the board as a conflict of interest because of his position as […]

WASHINGTON – Rep. Jo Bonner took on critics of the U.S. Navy’s prototypes of the Littoral Combat Ship in a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing earlier this week. Presently, there are two separate versions of this ship – a steel-hulled version built by Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, in Marinette, Wis. and an aluminum trimaran version from […]

Yesterday’s rate review hearing on Alabama Power at the Alabama Public Service Commission attracted an all-star cast of characters including wacko environmental groups, conservative policy wonks, power company executives, NAACP activists (huh?), reporters and more. Alabama Power representatives gave in-depth explanations of their history and customer service and economic development efforts before getting into how […]

In the shocking video above, late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart is caught on camera discussing with a woman in her 26th week of pregnancy the chilling details of a late-term abortion. According to the Weekly Standard, “Carhart is something of a rockstar among the “reproductive rights” community. The two Supreme Court decisions on partial-birth abortion bear […]

“Rumors and Rumblings” is a weekly feature that runs each Wednesday. It includes short nuggets of information that we glean from conversations throughout the week. Have a tip? Send it here. All sources remain confidential. AEA Gets beat again One of the most-discussed topics on the seventh floor of the State House Tuesday night was […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Alabama Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby voted on Monday for the Marketplace Fairness Act, a measure that would enable localities to collect sales tax on Internet purchases. Sessions’ office offered Yellowhammer a statement explaining his vote on Tuesday afternoon. According to the statement, Sessions said the measure would level the playing […]