The 7 Things You Should Be Talking About Today
1. Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-05) is a “Hell no” on the budget deal that will probably pass
— Brooks referred to the bill as a “Senate Democrat debt junkies spending bill that America simply cannot afford”.
— Brooks and the House Freedom Caucus oppose the 21 percent increase in federal discretionary spending, and the suspension of the debt limit bothers many.
2. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi rambled like a crazy person on the floor of the House over illegal immigration
— Democrats continue to be upset about illegal immigration, while most of the efforts to keep the government open past Thursday ignore the issue.
— In her speech, she rambled about the border wall and her grandson, who wants to be Guatemalan.
3. More texts between a FBI agent and his FBI lawyer lover and more questions
— Even though President Barack Obama claimed he had nothing to do with any investigations and there would be “no political influence”, we know an FBI employee said Obama “wants to know everything we are doing”.
— There are questions about whether the e-mails are about the Clinton e-mail investigation or the Trump-Russia investigation; neither are appropriate, but the media seems to think their job is to repeat it was not about the Clinton e-mail stuff.
4. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill that okays the incentives for Toyota-Mazda and other good economic news
— Ivey signed Senate Bill 98 that gave authority to counties to do more tax abatement to chase new projects and bring in jobs.
— Other good news includes a U.K.-based coil plant in Pell City and a relocation of the corporate management of the SSAB’s steel mill in Axis to Alabama.
5. No more hooking up in the halls of Congress between lawmakers and their staff
— In a move you wouldn’t have known is necessary, Congress has voted to explicitly ban lawmaker-staff hookups.
— Congressman Bradley Byrne (AL-01) says this bill brings Congress into line with the business world.
6. An Olympian makes a completely risk-free snub of the Vice President of the United States and becomes a hero
— Vice President Mike Pence reached out to a gay American athlete after learning the athlete was unhappy with him; Adam Rippon turned down the meeting.
— Rippon’s main gripe is that Pence funded gay conversion therapy, a very specific thing, which is a lie.
7. Trump parade draws fire from the left and right; a few folks praise it
— Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) said, “Personally, I prefer he not do it,” while Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) say this is “something authoritarian regimes do”.
— The last major military parade was in 1991; it was a parade to celebrate the U.S.’s victory in the Gulf War and it cost $12 million dollars.
