7. Man in body armor tries to pull gun on Mobile County deputy 

• A very stupid man is very lucky that he is not dead after fleeing law enforcement and being struck by the deputy’s weapon.
• Nathan Trehern’s vehicle crashed after a chase and during the struggle, he attempted to pull a firearm, the deputy then placed his firearm to his head and when he disobeyed the order to stop he was hit with the gun. He is still alive.

6. Moore declares that business as usual is over

• U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) says the battle over the Speaker of the House job was good for Congress and the country.
• Moore notes that 70% of members of Congress have been elected since 2016 and said, “I think it’s good for the American people to see us debate on the floor, to negotiate and get the best set of rules we can get to make sure we pass our voice along with our constituents, where we can hear and vote and have a say in the process up here rather than a rubber stamp.”

5. The “Insurrection Protection Committee” talking point is born

• The minority House Democrats in Washington, D.C., rose to their feet to oppose an investigation into the weaponization of the government for political matters with some calling the committee formed to look at the misbehavior at the DOJ the “Insurrection Protection Committee.”  This committee has a direct mission, focusing on the “weaponization” of the federal government against Republicans.
• Other members had different, equally unclever names for the committee like the “Republican Committee to Obstruct Justice” or the “Tinfoil Hat Committee” but the goal is simple, to delegitimize investigation into the “Deep State.” 

4. The consequences of Democrats’ actions infuriate Democrats

• Democrats were warned that when they decided they wanted to start removing Republicans from their committees for partisan reasons in past that there would be a blowback if/when Republicans gained power. Well, the chickens are now coming home to roost.
• Now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has announced that he will be removing Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee. But that isn’t all, he is also going to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Democrats might learn this lesson, a similar thing happened with the Supreme Court.

3. Voter fraud is real

• Perry County Commission Chairman Albert Turner Jr. (D) has been charged with voter fraud for stuffing ballots into a voting machine and ballot harvesting by presenting multiple ballots for mail at the post office, one is a misdemeanor and one is a felony.
• These events took place during the primary and general elections. Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill said these issues have been a priority for his term as Secretary of State, “Since January 19, 2015, we have worked extraordinarily hard to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat in Alabama.” 

2. $500 million in rebates for Alabama taxpayers could be coming

• There has been a lot of election-year talk about tax rebates being sent to Alabama taxpayers, some have argued it may be time to rethink that in light of the state of the U.S. economy and the potential hard times ahead.
• State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) says the Legislature is moving forward with the plan to the tune of $500 million. Orr says the up to $2.7 billion surplus in the Education Trust Fund allows the rebates to move forward, “We believe, after we take care of state government, at least on the education side, we have enough to send back to the people of Alabama, who sent it to us in the first place.”

1. Biden has a real problem on his hands

• President Joe Biden apparently has a problem keeping track of classified documents, this comes after wondering out loud how President Donald Trump could keep classified documents at his home. The second batch of documents found recently were found in a different location than the first which were found in an old office Biden stopped using years ago.
• To put this in perspective, the media and their Democrats accused Donald Trump of treason for having documents the National Archivist wanted at his house, while Biden has had documents in various locations for 6 years after his term as vice president ended and he claims he has no idea how they got there. A U.S. Attorney is reviewing the issue.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL01) attended a classified House Armed Services Committee briefing on the deteriorating situation in Iraq Wednesday morning. After the briefing, he expressed concerns with the advances being made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). However, Byrne rejected the idea of working with Iran to address the situation, along with the possibility of the United States playing “any intensive military role” in the budding crisis.

“I am very concerned by the continuing reports of ISIS advances in Iraq. It is important to remember that this is not a rational enemy we are facing, but rather an extremist group that’s stated goal is to form their own country. They are committed to using very brutal means in order to advance their agenda,” Byrne said.

The United States and Iran find themselves in the rare position of being on the same side of the current situation in Iraq. Both countries would like to prevent the collapse of the Iraqi government and the outbreak of civil war. As a result, U.S. State Department officials and Iranian diplomats discussed the possibility of some type of coordinated approach to Iraq during a meeting about Iran’s nuclear program on Monday. The State Department was quick to point out that military coordination was off the table, but the idea of working with Iran on some level has gotten the support of several high ranking U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Rep. Byrne pushed back hard against the possibility of working with Iran, noting their ongoing support of terrorist organizations around the world.

“I reject the idea that the United States should work closely with Iran, who remains the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, to resolve this crisis,” Byrne said. “We do not have normalized relations with Iran, and we should not forget that we remain in contentious talks over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. I also do not believe there is any intensive military role for the United States to play, including putting boots on the ground.”

President Obama has ruled out using airstrikes against the insurgents for the time being, although the USS George W. Bush moved into the Persian Gulf over the weekend in case he changes his mind. Predator drones outfitted with Hellfire missiles and Reapers carrying precision-guided bombs give the U.S. the ability to take out ISIS camps and depots without the risk of a manned aircraft being shot down. However, with unreliable intelligence on the ground, some military experts question how accurate drone strikes would be. As a result, the president is believed to be leaning toward sending roughly 100 U.S. special operations troops into Iraq to boost the Iraqi government forces and increase the reliability of intelligence gathering efforts.

“The United States has spent a lot of time, an awful lot of money, and most importantly, American lives for a democratically elected Iraqi government to come into existence,” Byrne said. “We can’t now turn a blind eye to what is happening, and we must exert steady leadership in what is a very unstable part of the world.”

Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims

(Above: Yellowhammer News CEO Cliff Sims interviews Austal USA President Craig Perciavalle)

Craig Perciavalle kicked off 2013 by becoming President of Austal USA, America’s largest aluminum shipbuilding company, with roughly 4,000 employees in Mobile, Ala. A little over a year later, he’s leading the company through a period of unprecedented growth and cranking out the most advanced ships the U.S. Navy has ever had in its fleet. Austal is currently building Joint High-Speed Vessels (JHSV) and Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), both of which are so fast that their top speed is classified.

Mr. Perciavalle sat down with Yellowhammer CEO Cliff Sims this week for The Exchange, a regular feature in which Yellowhammer discusses current events and other topics with a state or national business leader or political figure, or notable Alabamian.

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Did you know Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to kill the Littoral Combat Ship, but Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., saved it? Did you know the most advanced ships in the Navy are being run on Microsoft Windows? Find out about that and so much more — including what’s making Alabama so attractive to companies around the world — by watching the video above.

Here are some of the top quotes from this week’s sit-down with Austal USA President Craig Perciavalle.

On what it’s like to operate the Navy’s most advanced ships:

The command infrastructure on the ship is Windows based. It basically looks like you’re looking at your desktop in your office. It’s got all the permissions and all the security features that are necessary to be in a military environment. But at the end of the day, it enables us to upgrade the systems on the ship, or ‘plug-and-play’ other weapons or other mission packages on the ship much more easily than a traditional Navy ship has been able to do in the past.

On working with Alabama’s Congressional delegation:

It’s phenomenal… I’ve been in this position for a little over a year now and the appreciation that I have for what they do has just gone beyond my imagination… They provide a tremendous amount of support for us — both with state support with supporting the operations, as well as support on the Hill.

On an Alabama-built ship making it into a Disney movie that made a half-billion dollars at the box office:

It’s the LCS Independence. It’s Tony Trihull in the Cars 2 Movie. We didn’t know it was going to happen. We had some employees that were sitting in the movie theater and they were like, ‘Holy cow, that’s our ship!’

On what’s making Alabama so attractive to companies right now:

First and foremost is the support the state gives industry here. They realize they need to provide support for companies to have them move to the area and grow the economics of the state. That’s been tremendous for us with AIDT training. We get a lot of support with that. We’ve had some support in the facility growth that we’ve had — both from the county, the City of Mobile and the State of Alabama. That partnership between the State of Alabama and industry is really second to none from what I’ve seen… That’s the main reason why people are attracted to come into the state… That’s just going to make the state of Alabama grow into an incredible economic powerhouse going forward.

On Austal employees rejecting unionization 3 times and Alabama’s status as a right-to-work state:

That’s probably the second leading attractive part of being in the State of Alabama — a right to work state… We focus on treating our employees right and creating a very good work environment for them.

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