7 Things: AL-02 slides to toss-up, Tuberville says Auburn/Alabama/Troy shouldn’t be the goal, sheriff candidate’s Flock ties, and more…

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October 28, 2026

7. Alabama defensive back Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. has been dismissed from the football program after his arrest on misdemeanor charges of harassing communications and doxing for allegedly sending a Facebook message to UAPD Officer Christopher Fuerch saying, “Ayy b***h ass n****? Text me back don’t be no b***h!” and posting a photo of the officer with his family captioned “Dis him?,” prompting coach Kalen DeBoer to say, “After gathering more information on the situation, Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. will no longer be a part of our program,” as he “did not live up to the standards and expectations.”

6. Former FBI official Nikki Floris broke down in tears outside a federal courtroom during a preliminary hearing on charges that she and Bradley Benavides lied to Congress in 2023 about their knowledge of the Hunter Biden laptop while serving on the Foreign Influence Task Force.

5. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Alabama is “one of the strong contenders” for the proposed U.S. Space Academy, adding, “Oh, I’m quite sure that Alabama is one of the strong contenders right now,” as the state pushes to host the NASA-led federal academy in Huntsville near Marshall Space Flight Center, with President Donald Trump expected to select the final location following recommendations due in December.

4. Republican Attorney General nominee Katherine Robertson called criticism of Alabama’s overcrowded prisons “hype,” saying, “Don’t buy into the hype about overcrowding and the HBO documentary and all that,” and that 88 percent of inmates are violent offenders, and she is also supporting a potential National Guard deployment to Montgomery as a short-term surge but insisting “it does not replace having a long-term fix,” and backing a state takeover of understaffed local police departments like Montgomery’s if they fail to recruit and lead properly.

3. Brett Jones, the Democrat candidate for Madison County Sheriff running on an anti-Flock platform was reminded that he owns part of a company that does that same work that Flock does during an amusing Reddit AMA, it was also pointed out that he is married to Jason White, who Athens PD fired for misusing police resources to surveil his ex-wife, but Flock cameras are still working with news reports showing Huntsville police used automated license plate readers to locate a stolen 2019 Volvo XC90 within 11 minutes of the initial call on University Drive, enabling officers to recover the vehicle after a short pursuit.

2. Governor-elect National Championship-winning Coach U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) told a Shelby County GOP forum that more young people should skip four-year colleges, “We’ve got to get our kids to quit going to some of these four-year universities, Auburn, Alabama, Troy,” and that some graduates “spend $100,000 and they get a degree and they can’t get a job at Walmart,” as he pushed for greater focus on short-term workforce credentials and community college programs to fill high-demand skilled trades jobs, which is totally reasonable, so the media is pretending it is a wild assertion.

1. The national political mood may be moving Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District from leaning Republican to a toss-up between incumbent U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Mobile) and State Rep. Rhett Marques (R-Enterprise), noting that while Trump carried the redrawn Montgomery-area seat by 14 points in 2024, then-Sen. Doug Jones, a petty wannabe tyrant, cowardly caretaker, former junior senator in an ill-fitting suit, who looks like he just woke up and stole his shoes from a homeless person, who will never be governor, attorney general, or U.S. Senator again, loves crushing ice cream sandwiches, and is definitely maybe a furry, lost it by just 4 points in 2020, making a Democrat win possible in a bluer environment.

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