7. Trump is ready to return to social media

• With his Truth Social site floundering, signs seem to point to former President Donald Trump returning to both Facebook and Twitter in the lead-up to 2024. Friend and foe alike seem torn on whether this decision will help or hurt his campaign for president.
• Trump can return to Twitter any time he wants and now his campaign has contacted Facebook asking to get that account back, saying, “We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse.” NBC News reports that Trump’s team is “workshopping” potential first tweets.

6. A meeting is being held to discuss what Constitutional carry is: It is permitless carry

• Alabama lawmakers passed a law declaring gun owners did not need a permit issued by the state to carry concealed weapons in Alabama, that’s pretty much it. But some are pretending they need to discuss the matter further and a public meeting will be held in Fairhope on the matter.
• Questions about carrying in church and other private businesses (yes, but they can tell you to leave), courthouses and the Statehouse (no),  and whether gun owners will need to get a permit to travel with their firearm to other states (yes) have apparently come up.

5. Dead people and inmates get paid

• The fact that dead people and inmates are unemployed is technically correct, which is the best kind of correct, but they are not eligible for unemployment payments. Unfortunately, more than $7 million has been given to them over the last couple of years.
• U.S. Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington suggests the report is inaccurate but it seems that he is actually suggesting it is misleading. Washington acknowledges the money did in fact go out, but it was a very small portion of the total amount paid by the agency (.38%). He would go on to tout his agency’s performance, saying that they did well, despite “national reports of historic unemployment fraud, and despite the tsunami of claims ADOL received, with reduced staff and reduced budgets, less than half of a percentage point of inaccurate payments is actually quite impressive.”

4. Karine Jean-Pierre says ask the DOJ about her boss’s problems

• As poorly as President Joe Biden is handling the scandal surrounding his mishandling of classified documents over multiple locations and over multiple years, it is possible that Biden’s press secretary is actually handling it worse. Surrounded by a press corps that generally gives her the benefit of the doubt, even when she doesn’t deserve it, she is failing.
• Yesterday, Karine Jean-Pierre snapped at reporters for the fifth day in a row as they peppered her with questions that she refused to answer about the White House’s transparency and interactions with the Department of Justice. She eventually referred almost all questions on the matter to the DOJ and then rejected the premise that the DOJ spokesperson would join a later briefing to answer questions.

3. Ainsworth wants cooperation between parties in Montgomery

• As Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth was addressing how Montgomery works during his inaugural address, he noted that “in Montgomery, we get along with Democrats and we get along with Republicans, and we try to find out what are the best policies to put in place to make our state the best place to live.” But on some of the issues he spoke of, like education, that seems like it will be very hard to do.
• Ainsworth is making it clear where he stands on school choice: “We must assure that the quality of education our children receive isn’t determined by the ZIP Code in which they live.” His references to school choice and charter school are good signs for real school choice advocates but this issue will be a hard one to find bipartisan agreement on.

2. Gov. Ivey signs education executive order

• Gov. Kay Ivey’s inauguration address declared that education was going to be her number one issue with her seemingly impossible goal of moving Alabama significantly up the rankings and making the state a top 30 state for reading and math scores. She has now signed an executive orders meant to set those wheels in motion.
• The orders do multiple things, including the creation of a statewide version of “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Network” which will send books to all of Alabama’s children up to 5 years old; creating a commission of experts to guide policy; move forward toward fulfilling previous objectives such as the Literacy and Numeracy acts; and requiring the state Superintendent to issue a report on the status of these objectives.

1. The debt limit fight is coming, it will be surpassed today

• Much is being made about the United States government hitting its debt limit today, there is currently a standoff in Congress over how to move forward after it finally happens. House Republicans say they will agree to raise the limit even further, even though we currently sit at a national debt of $32 trillion if they can get some promises for spending cuts. The Democrat U.S. Senate says they will only accept a debt limit increase with no conditions. This is a battle between GOP conservatives, who are testing their power, and the establishment in Washington.
• Having a debt limit is pointless if we keep having to move it. The media seem to be taking the position that only the Democrat position is responsible and any conditions will destroy the economy. Also, if we pass the debt limit without a deal, the economy will be destroyed as well, which is odd. The possible consequences of this impasse range from stock market crash, recession, higher interest rates, weaker dollar, U.S. credit downgrade, and the United States having no more money for funding the military and Social Security benefits.