The conversation about Confederate monuments raises some intellectually and morally stimulating questions: What is their function? Do they function as objects of praise or as objects of historical memory? Who ought to determine whether they stay or go?

I’ll leave those questions aside for now because I want to address how Gov. Ivey has articulated the monuments issue.

George Lakoff is a cognitive scientist who has done a lot of research examining how politics and language intersect, particularly how language is used by individuals and groups to present their opponents in ways that welcome easy refutation. Usually, this means the misrepresentation of those ideas or opponents or, at the very least, a simplistic representation of them.

Lakoff refers to this as the act of “framing,” calling “frames” the arguments or scenarios set up by framing.

Here are a few assumptions that Ivey’s frame makes: Monuments are not only a way to learn from our history, but they are central to learning from our history; non-Alabamians and political enemies are trying to tell us what to do in advocating for monuments’ removal; monuments are a way to ensure that Alabama gets “where it wants to go,” politically, socially, culturally; that Alabamians are opposed to monument removal.

There are obvious political benefits to framing the issue this way. Knowing our history is clearly important. Who could argue that? Alabama is a sovereign state. Nobody wants outsiders tampering with decision-making.

What the frame excludes is an argument demonstrating why monuments are central to learning from our history, and how their removal would prevent us from learning from our history. It also excludes names of individuals or groups who have come from afar to tell us what to do.

It’s undeniable that folks from all around the country want Confederate monuments removed all around the country, and some may even be funding that effort from afar, but the major weakness of Ivey’s frame is a failure to acknowledge the Alabamians who are arguing for monument removal.

Birmingham City officials have advocated their removal.

Tuskegee Mayor Tony Haygood said the city has considered the removal of a Confederate soldier monument in the middle of town.

A Tuskegee graduate wrote a petition last year to the have the same monument removed. The petition garnered more than 1,000 signatures.

City officials in Selma have shown a similar resolve over the years, if not to have a monument removed then to cease the city’s contribution to its maintenance.  

Obviously, Ivey doesn’t have time in a 30-second ad to deconstruct the monument debate’s complexity, and I understand that, but her frame doesn’t accurately articulate who is representing the monument removal view in Alabama.

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

More than just our individual income tax system relies on voluntary compliance. About one percent of corporate income tax returns are audited, and the sales tax relies on retailers accurately reporting sales. Environmental, workplace safety, and other government regulations depend on accurate reporting of information by businesses.

Voluntarily paying taxes improves our standard of living. The cost of auditing even a quarter of tax returns would be staggering: a huge increase in IRS agents, and enormous monetary, time, and emotional costs for taxpayers. Social science research suggests that treating people like lawbreakers can undermine respect for the law. If so, then having the IRS audit more taxpayers might conceivably increase tax avoidance, especially if some ways to hide or shelter income always exist.

We pay taxes voluntarily because they fund activities we want government to perform. The American Revolution established that in America, government would serve citizens. By contrast, throughout most of human history, people served kings or emperors.

Libertarians like to say that taxes are theft, and this contains a kernel of truth. Ultimately armed federal agents will seize property for unpaid taxes; armed robbers similarly take property, and injure owners if they resist. Taxes are not theft because, and only because, we approve of what government does with our money. Not each and every dollar spent, obviously, but the package as a whole.

Many Americans express a willingness to pay taxes. In 2017, 88 percent of Comprehensive Taxpayer Attitude Survey respondents agreed that cheating on taxes was not acceptable, while 95 percent agreed that paying taxes is a civic duty. Americans seemingly accept that taxes are the price we pay for civilization.

Today perhaps more than ever, however, Americans seem to view government as out of control. President Trump’s campaign promise to “Drain the Swamp” seemed to resonate with millions of Americans. (Whether the President is engaged in swamp draining is a different question.) Many young Bernie Sanders voters also seemed alienated from mainstream politicians. Such attitudes bode ill for a system based on voluntary compliance.

To be fair, perceptions of a disconnect with government are hardly new. Thomas Jefferson viewed his election victory over John Adams in 1800 as a second American revolution, which implies that President Adams was emulating Britain’s King George III. The student protests and urban riots of the 1960s left some political scientists wondering if America was ungovernable. Ronald Reagan claimed that Washington was the problem, not the solution. Conservatives’ concern today about a liberal deep state conspiracy against President Trump may just be old wine in new bottles.

Taxes are not theft because we believe that government ultimately serves us. Tax Day reminds us that if Americans stop believing that government reflects our values and interests, our tax system will no longer function as it has. And the resulting changes will almost certainly be for the worse.

Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University.

5. The Trump organization wrote a check to the Treasury for profit derived from foreign governments, liberals are still mad

— One of the left’s more far-fetched attacks on President Trump has been based on a misreading of the “Emoluments clause” that implies the president’s businesses can’t make money with foreign governments, which is not what it says.

— The Trump organization wrote a check to the Treasury Department for $151,470 for profits the company made from foreign governments, which the “Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics” claim doesn’t solve the Emoluments issue.

6. Alabama gun range is the latest target of Facebook’s selective censorship program

— Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg came under fire from Senator Ted Cruz for blocking conservative content on their platform, including advertising, while allowing controversial liberal groups to operate unimpeded.

— Huntsville gun range, Bullet and Barrel, and Yellowhammer News have been blocked from boosting content Facebook has declared promoted the “sale of firearms (which it did not) and other content they said was “shocking” or disrespectful” which was laughably not.

7. Fresno State professor says she is glad Barbara Bush is dead and declared herself untouchable, the school disagrees

— A professor took to social media declaring Barbara Bush was “a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal”. When criticized she decided to give out the phone number of a different university’s counseling line.

— Fresno State sought to distance themselves from the professor by saying she could be fired, she is currently on leave, they are looking into the matter, and taking it “very seriously”.

4. President Donald Trump may solve this North Korea issue after all, or they may not meet at all

— It was reported by The Guardian that CIA Director Mike Pompeo met with the North Korean leader over Easter to lay the groundwork for a summit.

— In a joint photo event with Japanese President Abe, the president talked about how he had the blessing of South Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un but also how it may not ever happen.

5. IRS extends tax deadline as tax system fails, Trump applies for an extension

— Government bureaucracies rarely function well, so it shouldn’t shock people that as people scrambled to file their last-minute tax returns the system to accept them was knocked offline, so now you get another day.

— In a politically tone-deaf move, the President of the United States did not have his taxes ready on time which allows his opponents to point out how he still hasn’t released his tax returns.

6. Starbucks will actually close almost 8,000 stores to give all their racist employees a lecture

— After a ridiculous event in Philadelphia that led to two arrests and protests that claimed the notoriously liberal coffee chain was anti-black, the chain announced it would close stores for an afternoon for “racial bias training”.

— Former Attorney General Eric Holder, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, will help design the program, so of course people are complaining about it.

7. CNN’s Don Lemon is willfully putting guests on the air who are lying, other CNN hosts have to be doing the same

— In a podcast interview Lemon acknowledged they have guests on who say things they don’t believe to be true, but they keep having them.

— His larger point was that no Republicans will truly defend Trump, but all he did was point out CNN is populated with frauds and charlatans who guest all over the network even though they are known liars.

4. Sean Hannity is secret client #3, but that may not mean much

— Hannity was named after President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen’s lawyer asserted Cohen only has had 3 clients in the last two years and a federal judge demanded to know who the 3rd client was.

— Hannity asserted on his radio program, and in a statement, that he has never paid Cohen for anything and he has never represented him in any manner.

5. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is completely fine with Alabama using the death penalty.

— Sessions said the U.S. will give Alabama custody of convicted judge murderer Walter Leroy Moody so the state can execute him.

— The lawyer for the killer argues he shouldn’t face the death penalty because the judge he killed was against it.

6. The movement to boycott Starbucks has almost completely died out, maybe the era of outrage is over

— Silly slogans like “A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of crap, Starbucks coffee is anti-black” seem to be contained to Philadelphia and social media.

— In spite of the weakness of the claims of the mob, the manager who called police “is no longer at that store”.

7. Lebron James threatened Alabama and Nick Saban; now he is being sued

— James made news when he criticized Alabama head coach Nick Saban for daring to talk to a pro football player in a barbershop. Saban eventually backed down and changed the name of his video series.

— Unfortunately for “King James”, he is now being sued by Adventure Enterprises for using the series after it was pitched to him.

When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dug into Mark Zuckerberg on this exact topic last week, Zuckerberg floundered, insisting that the far left views of Silicon Valley don’t leak into how Facebook does business, but some former Facebook employees tell a different story. They say they “routinely” suppressed conservative news stories from the site’s “trending” news section.

“Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation,” Gizmodo writes.

What that translates to is every conservative outlet in the country has to get through a liberal newsroom before it gets to Facebook users.

4. Starbucks arrest causes another racial outrage; police chief defends officers

— Philadelphia police officers arrested two men after receiving a trespassing call from Starbucks where the men were asked to leave and refused.

— Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said his officers “did absolutely nothing wrong” and pointed out that the men were asked by officers to leave, but refused and ended up being detained.

5. Women’s March endorses Backpage.com 5 days before they plead guilty to human trafficking charges

— The CEO of Backpage pled guilty to human trafficking and money laundering charges related to his operation of a website that was known to be used by prostitutes.

— The Women’s March Twitter account showed their support for Backpage earlier in the week by tweeting, “The shutting down of #Backpage is an absolute crisis for sex workers who rely on the site to safely get in touch with clients. Sex workers rights are women’s rights.”

6. Alabama’s ban on local minimum wage hikes will be challenged in court

— Attorneys have alleged a 2016 law banning cities from raising their minimum wage is racially discriminatory.

— The lawsuit claims that it takes “power” from majority-black Birmingham voters and gives it to the majority-white state electorate, a claim already knocked down by one court.

7. 92-year-old former First Lady Barbara Bush is near death

— The Bush family announced that the former First Lady will not be accepting any additional medical treatment and will now focus on comfort.

— Barbara Bush and former President Bush recently celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary.

It is a way to visualize the tax burden, which is roughly 30 percent of income. That includes not just federal income taxes but all taxes paid to government at all levels — state, local and federal.

This year, Americans will fork over $3.4 trillion in federal taxes, alone. State and local governments take another $1.8 trillion on top of that. The combined $5.2 trillion is 30 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

“Americans will collectively spend more on taxes in 2018 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined,” tax analyst Erica York wrote in the Tax Foundation report.

But chin up, American taxpayer. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress last year, will make this year’s Tax Freedom Day come three days earlier.

But the Tax Freedom Day does not include the effects of borrowing, which are substantial. Since 2002, federal expenses have surpassed revenue, with the annual deficit reaching $1 trillion from 2009 to 2012. The Congressional Budget Office projects this year’s deficit will grow from 665 billion to $806 billion, with a return to trillion-dollar deficits on the horizon.

Including all that red ink pushes Tax Freedom Day back — by 17 days in 2018, to May 6.

Before big government took hold in the 20th century, Americans hardly had to work at all before achieving tax freedom. For the first two decades of the last century, Tax Freedom Day hovered around Jan. 20. The entire rest of the year’s income could be spent on food, housing and other expenses.

That date began to creep later and later starting in the 1920s, however. Spikes in debt sent the adjusted Tax Freedom Day spiraling in the 1920s and again in the 1940s. In fact, the latest deficit-inclusive Tax Freedom Day on record occurred in 1945 — on May 25.

Alabama fares better than most of its peers because its residents, on average, make less — and therefore pay less in taxes — and because the state and local tax burden is relatively light.

“The total tax burden borne by residents of different states varies considerably due to differing state tax policies and the progressivity of the federal tax system,” York wrote.

So even if Alabama and a high-income state have the same tax policies, Alabama’s net tax burden will be less because its residents will pay less in federal taxes than the residents of the state with more higher-income residents.

New York State residents — who have the latest Tax Freedom Day in the nation — will be working for the government until May 14. That is more than a full month later than their counterparts in Alabama.

Other states with a late Tax Freedom Day are New Jersey, Connecticut and the District of Columbia — all at May 3.

@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”

Many of his votes have been fairly nondescript. He voted for February’s continuing appropriations resolution, for the recent spending bill, against the White House’s immigration proposal, against the banning of abortions after 20 weeks. These votes fall mostly within the party’s mainstream.

However, Jones has elsewhere demonstrated a willingness to split from his party in support of some key conservative reforms and of the president.

Chief among those cases is his vote in support of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which loosened financial regulations put in place by Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Progressive heavyweights – Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and 28 other Democrats – voted against the bill. Dodd-Frank is at the heart of progressive regulatory policy, and a vote in favor of reforming it is a significant split from that.

Jones has also supported several of President Trump’s nominees, voting in favor of Alex Azar’s nomination to the post of secretary of Health and Human Services and in favor of David Ryan Stras’s nomination to the Eighth Circuit. Only five other Democrats supported Azar’s nomination, and only six others supported Stras’s.

To be clear, these things make Jones a moderate Democrat, not a political moderate overall.

Most Alabamians surely like to see Jones supporting conservative reforms and supporting the president, but his extreme position on abortion remains a major hurdle.

Jones should – as Yellowhammer News Editor Pepper Bryars argued in January – sincerely consider reforming his position on abortion, not only to reflect the overwhelming majority of Alabamians’ beliefs about abortion, but because it’s the right thing to do.

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

4. Republicans continue to angle for the House Speaker job, even though it seems unlikely they control that position

— Representatives Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy are raising money for a potential shot at Speaker of the House, Ryan has tossed his support behind McCarthy.

— Not many people think Ryan would have stepped down if Republicans were expected to hang on to the House; currently Democrats are up 6.6 points on the generic Congressional ballot.

5. Alabama Democrats continue to read from the same playbook, this strategy has cost them the last 3 elections

— Democrats of the last 3 elections have argued for a lottery and increased government spending on healthcare. These ideas have not brought about any signs of actual success but that isn’t stopping them.

— The only reported dust-up came when former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Sue Bell Cobb and Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox debated who would best raise the state’s minimum wage.

6. Former QB Colin Kaepernick was reportedly denied a job opportunity because he wouldn’t stop kneeling, which he denies

— Kaepernick had a workout planned with the Seattle Seahawks that was allegedly canceled after he would not agree to end his National Anthem protests.

— The embattled QB is not the only player being questioned about his willingness to end the on-the-clock protests, free-agent safety Eric Davis was questioned by the Cincinnati Bengals about the issue when he met with them.

7. Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day; Americans don’t remember

— The day was established in 1980 – at the time only the U.S. and Israel had a day of remembrance – a study released this year shows that 58 percent of respondents believe it could happen again.

— One-third of all respondents and over 40 percent of millennials believe only 2 million or fewer were killed during the Holocaust, it is more troubling that 22 percent have no idea what the Holocaust is.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) expressed similar regret but about the recently-passed appropriations bill.

“I hope it gets legs,” Kennedy said of an effort by Republican leadership to use certain provisions of the Congressional Budget Act allowing them to cancel some of the spending authorized in the recent spending bill.

“I’m embarrassed about the bill we passed,” he said.

Kennedy voted against the appropriations bill, but many of his fellow Republicans undoubtedly had the same reservations about increasing spending and still voted for it because of its military funding or for whatever other reason.

Corker’s and Kennedy’s comments demonstrate how significantly fiscal issues are contributing to intra-party tension for Republicans, as members are forced to compromise certain of their own priorities with certain of their others for the sake of getting something passed.

With the statistically high possibility of Republicans losing their House majority in November, the prospects of significant conservative reforms coming in President Trump’s last two years are looking grim.

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

“Projected deficits over the 2018–2027 period have increased markedly since we issued our last budget and economic projections in June 2017,” Hall also said in the same statement. “The increase stems primarily from tax and spending legislation enacted since then—especially the 2017 tax act, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (emphasis mine).

For those interested in assigning bipartisan blame, CBO’s analysis offers an indictment of both parties.

“Between 2018 and 2028, real actual output and real potential output alike are projected to expand at an average annual rate of 1.9 percent,” Hall said.

By mentioning the Bipartisan Budget Act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, Director Hall demonstrates that rising spending is resulting from bipartisan legislation. Both of those bills were passed with Republican and Democrat support.

Whatever parts of the analysis may be found problematic in particular, the CBO has reinforced the argument made by conservatives all around that tax cuts must be coupled with spending cuts, or else the country’s fiscal crisis will continue.

4. Israel has a friend in Auburn’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl

— On college campuses, and newsrooms around the country, Israel is maligned as a bad actor, an aggressive presence in the Middle East, and not an ally of the United States.

— Auburn’s head coach isn’t buying it, he tweeted that America would not tolerate the behavior of Israel’s enemies: “If a foreign country threatened to destroy Boston Massachusetts, where I grew up or Auburn Alabama, where I live now, within the next 25 yrs, how should our country react? Really?”

5. Alabama’s tax burden is the 8th lowest in the country

— WalletHub compared the 50 states based on the three components of state tax burden vs. personal income — property taxes, individual income taxes, and sales and excise taxes.

— Alabama is the place to be for lower taxes: The state is 43rd in overall tax burden at 7.24 percent but its highest category was total sales tax at 3.97 percent.

6. Facebook’s CEO goes to Washington wearing a tie, and he apologized. No one will accept it, and they will crush him

— Zuckerberg’s apology was wide-ranging: “That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy,” according to the Washington Post.

— Zuckerberg’s issues aren’t only coming from D.C. His employees are quitting and asking to be reassigned.

7. London’s mayor is working to ban knives, although it sounds like it, this is not a joke

— Mayor Sadiq Kahn has implemented stop-and-frisk policies with 300 additional officers in high-crime neighborhoods to search for knives.

— The mayor also banned home deliveries of knives and acid because Londoners are using them to attack each other. London also is seeing a higher murder rate than New York for the the first time ever.

2. Because of this loophole, online content providers that post classified ads have been allowed to advertise prostitution with near impunity. A prime example is Backpage.com, which, according to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, posts one million sex ads a day. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children previously testified in a Senate subcommittee that 71 percent of all suspected child sex trafficking cases have a link to Backpage. When challenged in state courts, Backpage has repeatedly prevailed based on the interpretation that the Decency Act protects them from prosecution for the criminal wrongdoing of their customers.

3. FOSTA-SESTA amends federal law to specify that the Decency Act does not prevent websites from being subjected to civil action or criminal prosecution under state or federal criminal or civil laws relating to sex trafficking of children or sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion. Additionally, the legislation amends the federal criminal code to specify that the violation for benefiting from “participation in a venture” engaged in sex trafficking includes knowingly assisting, supporting, or facilitating the violation.

4. FOSTA-SESTA also allows state attorneys general to bring civil actions in U.S. district courts on behalf of the state’s residents if the attorney general believes an interest of the residents has been or is threatened or adversely affected by any person who knowingly participates in sex trafficking.

5. Even though the legislation has not yet been signed into law, it is already motivating online content providers to change their policies. According to Susan Yoshihara of the Center for Family and Human Rights:

“Cityvibe shut down completely, the Erotic Review, the ‘Yelp of the sex trade’ where men rate their experiences with trafficking victims, shut down advertisement boards in the United States, NightShift shut down to review policies, VerifyHim shut down its ‘newsreel,’ Craigslist personals section was shut down, Reddit’s prostitution-related “subreddits” were marked private and the site instituted new policies banning the sale of sex acts and drugs, Google reportedly deleted its publicly shared commercial sex-related advertising, WordPress.com reportedly removed its commercial sex-related advertising sites, Paypal reportedly disabled advertised accounts for commercial sex-related payment, Rubmaps, Erotic Monkey, and USA Sex Guide had extended maintenance periods over the weekend, suggesting upcoming changes due to the new law, Microsoft is issuing new Terms of Service effective May 1st covering all of its platforms, including Skype and Xbox, to urge users not to use the services to share pornography or criminal activity.”

(Courtesy ERLC)

4. Just because Governor Bentley isn’t facing criminal charges, it doesn’t mean his legal problems are over

— All 9 members of the Alabama Supreme Court refused to grant immunity to Governor Robert Bentley, so the case will move forward.

— The next step for this embarrassing matter could be a deposition of the former governor and discovery in the case.

5. President Trump is not going to let liberals and the media take out the head of the Environmental Protection Agency

— Pruitt is facing multiple scandals including travel costs, a condo scandal and security concerns, but Trump feels Pruitt is a target because he has been working on deregulation.

— The president Tweeted his support, “Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!”

6. Journalism schools are worried about Sinclair’s impact on the public’s trust in the media, seriously

— Multiple journalism school deans signed a letter to the president of Sinclair taking the company to task for making local news anchors condemn “fake news”.

— These worries are misplaced. Americans don’t trust the media already, and all Sinclair did was weirdly explained why.

7. North Korea continues to signal willingness to denuclearize; not the first time they have said they’d do this

— Press reports say that the North Korean leader is willing to talk about the matter with Trump in their summit which could take place in May.

— North Korea said it would not go nuclear in 1994, Bush tried in 2005, and Obama didn’t really do anything.

4. The Legislature approved the largest tax cut for Alabamians in over a decade.

A bill that was passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Ivey will give a modest tax cut to low- and middle-income earners in Alabama by increasing the standard deduction for an estimated 180,000 Alabamians. The Legislative Fiscal Office estimates this tax cut will lower tax collections in Alabama by $4 million. The bill passed both chambers with no opposition. Anything that puts more of Alabamians’ hard-earned dollars back into their pockets and out of the hands of government is a win in my book.

There were also some actions by the legislature that raised a few eyebrows.

5. The juvenile justice system did not get much-needed reforms

API has been vocal in support of Alabama’s need for reform in the juvenile justice system. In 2017, The Alabama Juvenile Justice Task Force was established. The task force proposed several reforms leading into this year’s legislative session, with support from national organizations weighing in on proposed reforms. The juvenile justice bill passed the House, but despite attempts from Senate sponsors, it failed to pass the full Legislature in the final days of the session. Juvenile justice reform is a serious issue, and it ought to be taken seriously and prioritized by the Legislature next year.

6. Former legislators social club — what an idea that was.

Remember earlier in the session when we heard about a bill that would create a social club for former legislators? Why would legislators need a bill to create a networking association? Anyone can create a social-networking club, but this legislation included a provision for association employees to be enrolled in both the state healthcare and retirement programs. This means that taxpayer funds, that could go to education or infrastructure, would go to club support staff. Alabama tax dollars should not be spent on the expensive health and retirement benefits of an ex-legislators-only social club. Good thing this bill didn’t last long.

What are we expecting to see more of next year?

7. Occupational licensing reform is a must.

The Trump administration, Obama administration, and workers across our state and nation can agree — something needs to be done about occupational licensing restrictions. According to a study by the Institute for Justice, Alabama ranks 47th in terms of most burdensome licensing restrictions in the country. Next year, Alabama’s lawmakers should prioritize reforms that would allow Alabamians to work without having to receive a permission slip from the government.

8. Efforts to improve and expand school choice should be a priority.

There were plenty of pieces of legislation that dealt with education in Alabama this past legislative session — from a pay raise for education employees to the hiring of county superintendents. In the midst of all of this, Alabama is looking for a new state superintendent. At API, we have great hope for education in Alabama in the coming years. A great step forward would be allowing all parents the freedom to make the best choice for their child’s education, whether that is through expanding the Alabama Accountability Act, authorizing education savings accounts, or something else entirely. This is an area where Alabama can be innovative in providing options for our families and schoolchildren, and we hope they will take that opportunity!

4. Oregon’s governor will not send National Guard troops to the border, will become a punching bag for Trump

— The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to use 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard soldiers to bolster the nation’s border patrol.

— Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said she would not send her National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, “If @realDonaldTrump asks me to deploy Oregon Guard troops to the Mexico border, I’ll say no,” Brown tweeted.

5. National Democrats see Congresswoman Martha as vulnerable after Sen. Doug Jones’ improbable win

— Democrats are looking for vulnerable Republicans and they think they have one in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, if she survives her 4 person primary that includes a former Congressman.

— DCCC spokesperson said, “We think that Doug Jones’ win coupled with Congresswomen Roby’s poor performance in the 2016 election could create room for a Democrat to win this seat, while still understanding the path is not easy.’’

6. Democrats in Alabama will campaign against allowing teachers to carry; former Tuscaloosa mayor calls it “idiotic”

— Maddox told a group of Democratic women, “Arming teachers may be the most idiotic idea that I’ve heard in the legislature since, well, since they didn’t expand Medicaid.”

— 58 percent of parents support allowing teachers to carry, 68 percent of Republicans support it, and this is Alabama.

7. Facebook could use this latest controversy to actually make money

— Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg says users would have to pay to opt out of all data-targeted ads.

— Users’ data is used by Facebook to deliver ads to individual users.

4. Trump will send the national guard to the border and continue building a border wall

— Just like presidents Obama and Bush, President Trump is activating the National Guard and sending them to the border.

— This comes after Trump told reporters, “We’re going to be doing things militarily. Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military.”

5. Maybe Gov. Kay Ivey doesn’t need to be involved in debates if she keeps raising money and dishing out burns

— Governor Ivey continues to face an onslaught of negative PR for passing on a series of GOP debates, but she is crushing her opponents in fundraising,  Ivey has $3.2 million which is $1 million more than any other candidate in the June Republican primary.

— When pressed on her debate schedule, Ivey’s campaign hit back, “Is Tommy Battle applying to be governor of Alabama, or campaign scheduler for Kay Ivey?”

6. Once again, cops knew about the YouTube shooter and her problems with YouTube

— San Bruno police said in a statement Nasim Najafi Aghdam did not know the victims she shot; she was a disgruntled user.

— After police contacted the family and told them that Aghdam had been found, her brother warned them that she might be going after the company and they did nothing.

7. Cambridge Analytica had access to the public data of 87 million people, but not private data

— Facebook announced that Cambridge Analytica might have used publicly available information from about 87 million Facebook users without the users’ knowledge; it was not private info.

— Worry away about this information while you continue to post your political opinion non-stop, check in everywhere you go, tell us your relationship status, and which Gilligan’s Island cast member you are.

1. The Post’s reporting suggests strongly that Mueller does not have compelling evidence that Trump conspired with Russian agents to fix the 2016 presidential election.

If Mueller had the goods, presumably Trump already would be a target.

There almost certainly would be other tells, as well. It is hard to believe that a smoking-gun piece of evidence would remain secret for long in leak-happy Washington.

Beyond that, it seems reasonable to assume that there would be some indication of a campaign conspiracy in the prosecutions Mueller’s team already is conducting.

CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets have made much hay over the indictments brought by the special counsel’s office, often conflating the the prosecutions with the unproven collusion narrative.

The fact is, the only case brought by Mueller that has anything to do with the 2016 election is the indictment naming 13 Russian nationals and three companies. And in announcing those charges, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a point of telling reporters that no American was implicated in the case.

The rest of the defendants in the Mueller probe face charges for conduct unrelated to the election — conduct by advisers predating the campaign — or for lying to the FBI during the investigation.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz put it best Wednesday night during an appearance on “Hannity” on Fox News.

“I have to tell you, if after a year of very thorough investigation and going after all the low-hanging fruit and getting people not only to sing but some of them even, perhaps, to compose — if they couldn’t have shifted him from a subject to a target, there’s nothing there,” he said.

Much has been made of the fact the defendants ensnared in the probe have agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Many assume that means they are giving up information about a conspiracy. But such cooperation agreements are standard in federal prosecutions, and one would think that if Mueller had evidence against Trump aides who have been charged, he would have included a campaign-related count.

That would only increase pressure on a defendant to give up bigger fish.

2. Trump is not in the clear. As Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) pointed out on CNN on Wednesday, carrying the label of “target” offers no guarantee against prosecution.

“One witness can take you from being a subject to a target,” he said.

It is true that Mueller could make a late Eureka discovery that puts Trump in the crosshairs, although the chances of a new witness at this stage of the game seem low. But Trump could get into trouble the same way his aides have — perjury.

The Post reported that Mueller’s communication to the president’s lawyers that he was not a target came in the context of negotiations over taking Trump’s testimony.

Trump reportedly is eager to testify, but Mueller’s record in the investigation should make the president tread carefully. An untruthful or conflicting statement well could bring a perjury allegation.

Mueller’s threshold does not appear particularly high. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about a meeting with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition period after the 2016 election.

Mueller did not accuse Flynn of any underlying crime. The meeting was legal — there is nothing wrong with an incoming national security adviser talking with foreign diplomats. Even from a country that has become Public Enemy No. 1. According to court records, Flynn acknowledged that he spoke with Kislyak.

But Flynn told the FBI that he did not ask Kislyak to delay or defeat a vote in the United Nations on a resolution sponsored by the outgoing administration. Flynn also told agents that he did not recall Kislyak telling him about Russia’s decision to moderate its response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing administration.

Those were lies, according to prosecutors.

George Papadopoulos, a low-level volunteer adviser to the campaign, also pleaded guilty to lying about otherwise-legal conduct, misstating the date he spoke to a London professor with contacts to Russia about getting dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the campaign.

Papadopoulos told investigators that he spoke with the professor before joining the campaign; in fact it was after. Authorities also contended that he lied when he downplayed the importance he placed on the professor’s information.

Perhaps the biggest danger to Trump is the Mueller writes a scathing report about the president’s conduct, particularly his behavior after taking office. Such a report might offer plenty of grist for articles of impeachment.

That could happen whether Trump testifies or not.

3. Mueller seems to think he could indict Trump. In the kerfuffle over whether Trump is a target or merely a subject, some people missed an important revelation.

In assigning the label, the special counsel seems to be signaling that he could indict Trump. That is noteworthy because the Justice Department’s position dating to Richard Nixon’s presidency is that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime.

Legal scholars have debated that, and it has never been tested in the Supreme Court.

But if Mueller thinks the president could potentially be a prosecution target, that would be significant.

4. The fact that Trump is a subject is really not all that surprising. But you wouldn’t know that if you watched cable news on Wednesday.

The talking heads treated the news that Mueller told Trump’s lawyers the president was a subject as earth-shattering revelation.

To be sure, it is unusual and significant that the president of the United States is the subject of a high-profile criminal investigation.

But at this point, it hardly is a surprise.

From the time Rosenstein appointed Mueller, it’s been pretty transparent that the entire endeavor has been about trying to find out if Trump conspired with the Russians.

This is not like Watergate, which began as — in the words of Nixon press secretary Ronald Ziegler — a “third-rate burglary” and slowly escalated toward the president.

From day one, the trajectory has been clear — either Trump conspired or it didn’t.

@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”

This is not the first time Scalfari has published from his conversations with Pope Francis. In fact, the two’s recent conversation was their fifth since the pope’s election in 2013. Following each of their meetings, Scalfari has quoted the pope saying highly controversial things, prompting defenses from the Vatican. Central to Rome’s defenses over the years has been that Scalfari does not record his conversations with the pope but recalls them from memory.

In November 2016, Scalfari wrote that Pope Francis told him “it is the communists who think like Christians.” Luis Badilla Morales, director of what the National Catholic Register has called the “semi-official Vatican news aggregator,” Il Sismografo, said at the time that the conversation in which that was allegedly said was not recorded.

In November of 2015, Scalfari published a story quoting Pope Francis saying that “all divorced who ask will be admitted” to receive the Holy Eucharist. Those divorced who have remarried and whose previous marriages have not been annulled are living in grave sin according to church law, and are not permitted to receive the sacrament.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told the National Catholic Register at the time, “As has already occurred in the past, Scalfari refers in quotes to what the Pope supposedly told him, but many times it does not correspond to reality, since he does not record nor transcribe the exact words of the Pope, as he himself has said many times. So it is clear that what is being reported by him in the latest article about the divorced and remarried is in no way a reliable and cannot be considered as the Pope’s thinking.”

The past circumstance that Lombardi was referring to occurred in 2014, when Scalfari quoted Francis saying “even bishops and cardinals” are pedophiles and that “others, more numerous, know but keep silent.”

Father Federico responded to the news by saying that the Pope and Salfari had a cordial conversation.

“However,” Federico said, “as it happened in a previous, similar circumstance, it is important to notice that that words that Mr. Scalfari attributes to the Pope, ‘in quotations’ come from the expert journalist Scalfari’s own memory of what the Pope said and is not an exact transcription of a recording nor a review of such a transcript by the Pope himself to whom the words are attributed.”

The previous, similar circumstance to which Federico was referring occurred in 2013, when Scalfari reported that Francis told him that the Catholic doctrine of sin had been abolished.

Scalfari said that he had not used a tape recorder or taken notes during the conversation in which Pope Francis allegedly made that significant revision to Catholic theology.

Pope Francis has demonstrated a constant desire to engage those outside the faith, and Scalfari in particular, to whom he wrote an extensive letter in September of 2013 in which he evangelized Scalfari, answering spiritual reflections that the journalist published in an edition of his paper months earlier.

It’s puzzling that Pope Francis repeatedly returns to Scalfari, having been misquoted after each meeting, but it may have something to do with his strategy of evangelization.

@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News

4. Teachers across the country are going on strike, free publicity will cause these to spread

— After a successful teachers’ strike in West Virginia , other states are now seeing the strikes cause school to be cancelled in Oklahoma and Kentucky.

— Teachers in Phoenix may be next; they are demanding a 20 percent pay raise after Oklahoma teachers got 16 percent.

5. Congressman Bradley Byrne believes Democrats are targeting the 2nd Amendment and Sen. Doug Jones is too

— After two weeks of different liberal entities calling for an end to the 2nd Amendment, followed by claims that no one is calling for its repeal, Byrne called out Sen. Jones and his fellow Democrats for not being honest about their intentions.

— Byrne believes Jones supports gun control, and said, “It is becoming the mainstream Democrat position.”

6. Mayor of Geenville, Ala., feels tariffs are going to hurt his city as China’s response tariffs go into effect

— Mayor Dexter McLendon said Trump’s tariffs on imported aluminum and steel would have consequences for Butler County’s economy, which relies on a Hyundai plant.

— Chinese tariffs that were announced in March have gone into effect, they target 128 products.

7. Fox News has shown their support for embattled host Laura Ingraham

— Their statement says, “We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts”, as the host takes what they say is a scheduled week off.

— As the media has an aneurysm over Sinclair Broadcasting’s odd “fake news” script, they have uniformly attempted to enforce a policy that no one can criticize the Parkland students, no matter what they say.

CORRECTION: The mayor of Florence said that the mural is “disgusting”, a previous version indicated he thought it was a accurate depiction of the debate happening in the country.

Listen to the whole interview here:

@TheDaleJackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a conservative talk show from 7-11 AM weekdays on WVNN in Huntsville.

4. Sinclair Broadcasting is under-fire for all of the things he rightly claims the liberal media does

— A montage of Sinclair’s anchors from around the country reading the same script is making the rounds of social media and anchors and others have complained about the comments about “fake news”.

— Just for a bit of clarity, American media bias already exists and it’s isn’t about conservative oligarchs controlling the message.

5. The media was targeting Easter for some reason on Easter, this doesn’t happen with other holidays

— Am opinion piece at NBC.com told the story of a Christian who can’t celebrate Easter because of its ties to “white supremacy”.

— Another NBC News employee, Chuck Todd, decided to try to explain that there is nothing all that “good” about “Good Friday”.

6. London is trending towards a murder rate higher than New York’s; this is incredibly rare

— For all the talk we are hearing about how our society is plagued by rampant gun violence that no one else sees, we are ignoring that other countries are seeing an uptick in violence while America is seeing a decrease in crime.

— In February, London had more murders than New York with a total of 15 homicides and there were  22 murders in March, which should top New York’s numbers as well.

7. Charles Barkley donates $250k for African-American history education in Alabama

— The outspoken former NBA player and current television analysts says that money will assist kids in Mississippi and Alabama learn more about their culture.

— The program is about African-American History and will share African American stories in public service, sciences, academia, the arts, music, and sports.