7. Warden reassigned, staffers placed on leave
- After Jeffery Epstein’s apparent suicide, the warden of the federal detention center has been reassigned and the two staffers on duty at the time tasked with monitoring Epstein’s unit have been placed on administrative leave amid reports indicating that staffers slept through checks and falsified their records after his death.
- The Department of Justice said that additional action will be taken if necessary. Attorney General William Barr has called the situation with Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center a “failure” as well as citing unspecified “irregularities” in the facility.
6. Trump blinks on tariffs
- President Donald Trump has decided to call off a series of tariffs on Chinese goods and cited the upcoming Christmas shopping holiday and the impact it could have on consumers as the reason. This is a departure from his normal refrain that Americans don’t pay for tariffs.
- The stock market really liked this decision. The tariffs were ready to go into effect on September 1, but cellphones, laptops, video game consoles, clothing, shoes and toys will not see the increase in tariffs until December 15 — that could obviously change.
5. We should talk about the rhetoric
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into “targeted attack” where an individual fired into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a contractors office. The agent in charge said, “Political rhetoric and misinformation that various politicians, media outlets and activist groups recklessly disseminate to the American people regarding the ICE mission only serve to further encourage these violent acts.”
- Last month, United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) referred, and defended referring, to facilities holding illegal immigrants as “concentration camps.” Since that time, at least four ICE facilities have come under attack from domestic terrorists.
4. Birmingham church opens its doors to illegal immigrants
- In Birmingham, a group of church members has decided to welcome in illegal immigrants due to the raids at the Mississippi food processing facilities, but they’re ignoring facts of the situation.
- The group, “Concerned Clergy, Faith Leaders, and Faith Communities of Birmingham,” released a statement saying that they would protect the illegal immigrants that came to their church for refuge, and while they want to protect and help the children whose parents were picked up during the raid, they missed the part where the parents who are the main caretaker of their children were released and the fact that the illegal immigrants arrested also committed crimes of identity theft and fraud.
3. Tennessee is following Alabama’s lead
- This week, Tennessee lawmakers will be considering a bill that will ban abortion at the earliest detection of pregnancy. It’s also hoped that this will go on to become a Supreme Court challenge.
- While it will be argued that the bill is unconstitutional, that’s kind of the point of the bill, as State Senator Kerry Roberts (R-TN) said that they want “a vehicle to lead the Supreme Court to consider, I hope, overturning or at least chipping away at Roe v. Wade.”
2. Never let a crisis go to waste
- On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he’s going to ask President Donald Trump to use the $5 billion in funds the president has requested for the border wall for gun control and fighting white supremacy. Schumer’s office has said that the money would be used for gun violence research by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, counter violent extremism programs at the Department of Homeland Security and domestic-terrorism investigations at the FBI.
- Schumer said in a statement that the “scourges of gun violence and violent white supremacist extremism in this country are a national security threat,” even though the number of deaths caused by white supremacists is dwarfed by the number of people killed by illegal aliens every year.
1. No surprise: people hate the toll
- A new poll conducted by WT&S Consulting shows that 77% of voters in Baldwin and Mobile county are against the toll plan for I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project.
- Dean Young, who paid for the poll to be conducted, said that the results send a clear message to Governor Kay Ivey to stop the toll from happening. The poll had 1,149 people opposing the toll and only 346 people in support of the toll.
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