7. Trump and the Cherokee nation respond to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry test
— The strange move involved Warren releasing a video that declared “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor” from six to ten generations ago which means she is between 1/64th to 1/1024th native American.
— Any fair-minded observer would view this a rebuke of Sen. Warren’s claims to be a “woman of color” not a response to President Trump’s “attacks”.
6. Alabama Republicans may be softening on Medicaid expansion
— Republicans in Alabama have been steadfastly against the Medicaid expansion proposal because it will require an additional outlay of up to $200 million dollars. This is a wildly unpopular idea amongst Republican legislators but lame-duck Republica State Senator Gerald Dial is stepping out and advocating for it.
— While this is one of Democratic candidate for Governor Walt Maddox’s issues, support from legislators switching positions after an election wouldn’t be much of a surprise. They did something similar in 2007 with a pay raise, and in 2015 Governor Robert Bentley advocated for additional revenue after running a campaign saying that very thing would not be necessary.
5. Three percent of U.S. taxpayers pay a majority of taxes in the United States
— A trope from the media and their Democrats is that tax cuts only help the top 1 percent, this is patently false, in fact, the top few percents of the American citizens pay a majority of taxes collected in this country.
— Amazingly, the top 1,409 taxpayers pay more income tax than the bottom 70 million, with expectations in the fiscal year 2018 to be close to $1.7 trillion dollars which surpasses 2017’s collection of $1.5 trillion dollars.
4. The Saudis are ready to admit they had something to do with a journalist’s death
— Saudi Arabia will reportedly admit that they accidentally killed Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi during an interrogation that went south. The alleged claim will be that they were just trying to abduct the journalist from Turkey.
— This all comes less than 24 hours after the President seemed to accept the denial of the leader of the oil-rich kingdom that has made a threat to retaliate against any nation that sanctions them.
3. Governor Kay Ivey has assigned a new chairman of the Alabama Board of Pardon and Paroles and froze paroles for 75 days
— Governor Ivey has issued an executive order that freezes all early paroles for 75 days, which requires the board implement a plan of which Ivey and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall approve.
— Ivey and Marshall acted yesterday, and for good reason. 100 more violent inmates were set for possible early release before the end of October.
2. President Donald Trump tours areas devastated by Hurricane Michael
— The President spent the day on the Gulf Coast, taking a helicopter tour of and visiting damaged Panama City and Lynn Haven on the ground where he spoke to survivors and handed out water bottles before heading to Georgia.
— The President praised Alabama’s Governor saying, “She’s in there fighting” as he praised the farmers damaged by the storm, “[T]hinking about our GREAT Alabama farmers…We are with you!”
1. Alabama Senator Doug Jones doesn’t get why people are upset with him over his vote against Justice Brett Kavanaugh
— Speaking to Alabama Public Televsion’s “Capitol Journal”, Jones lashed out at the Alabama Republican Party. Jones said: “This is the same Republican Party who voted for a guy last year – who continued to support someone who ran against me who there were very, very serious and credible allegations. This is a Republican Party that puts party over state, party over country. So, I’m not surprised they put this in political tones. The very thing that I avoided from the beginning, from my standpoint and my standpoint was what mattered to me and my staff – we were not looking at this in political terms.”
— The problem with Jones’ analysis here is that he doesn’t seem to grasp that the state views him as turning their back on them. He supported the wishes of Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren as opposed to those in the state of Alabama.