7 Things: Brooks, Shelby bowing out on different sides; Twitter worked for FBI; and more …

7. Democrats meeting to release Trump tax returns

• In a move surprising no one, Democrats are fully-prepared to release former President Donald Trump’s tax returns in order to embarrass the former president early on in his new presidential campaign.
• The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee said it needed to get at Trump’s tax returns to review how the Internal Revenue Service’s auditing process was and now they want to release them. This was always the plan for U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) who chairs the committee.

6. Vaccine mandate in the military over, no reprieve for those discharged

• Democrats are ready to take the “L” on the vaccine mandate in order to get their latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed. Unfortunately, Democrats and some allies in the Republican Party are perfectly content to screw over servicemen and women who have been discharged over this policy.
• Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wanted to reinstate these soldiers with back pay but a few Republicans were willing to sacrifice them to the policy. Republicans who supported this are the usual suspects: Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine)

5. Assistant principal still working in Madison

• There is yet-unseen video of an assistant principal in Madison delivering some education to a young lady who had just bitten him. But it has been declared an “educational record” because the video may be used to punish the kid. WHNT-TV sought the additional video, not the video widely seen that was shot by another student, but that request has been declined.
• This incident in Madison is not the only school system dealing with issues like this. Nearly four dozen teachers and staff in Brevard, Fla., have bailed on the district over criminal behavior and violence in the schools. The sheriff of the county has even declared the situation to be out of control.

4. Auburn dorms ban TikTok on Wi-Fi

• Gov. Kay Ivey has declared TikTok is gone from Alabama government cellphones and networks, most people believe this means cellphones in her office or maybe the Department of Corrections phones smuggled to prisoners by corrupt prison guards but college kids will feel it too.
• At Auburn, students using their dorm’s Wi-Fi will not be able to access the Chinese government-owned app used for promoting eating disorders and bad lip-syncing to the masses. It is still unclear what this ban means for TikTok accounts run by state entities, including athletic teams.

3. Jan. 6 committee to take another bite at the apple

• When U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tells a CNN audience that he has evidence that a crime has been committed by former President Donald Trump, you may have to check the calendar to see if he is talking about leaks from the failed Mueller report, his failed impeachment inquiries or the rapidly failing Jan. 6 committee he serves on. But, nevertheless, he persisted.
• Schiff insists this is where they will finally get Trump. The recommendations are clearly non-binding and will serve as a final embarrassment from the committee that has, as of yet, failed to prove that Trump nor congressional Republicans were involved in law-breaking that day, now they hope to smear them on procedural minutia.

2. FBI and Twitter were working together

• Not that we needed it, there is more evidence that Twitter and the government colluded in 2020 to silence voices they disagreed with. At one point, people inside Twitter even voiced concern over this but eventually went along with the FBI’s wishes. Twitter was also meeting with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Some e-mails had headers that said “Request for Coordination with Twitter.”
• The independent journalist releasing the latest “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi, described this arrangement as that of a “subsidiary” with “constant and pervasive” interactions where the FBI acted as a “master” and Twitter acted as a “canine” and attacked when told. One account they targeted made an obvious and familiar joke saying, “Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday 9th”.

1. Shelby bill faces hurdles, Brooks lays out his “no” vote

• It surely looks like U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa) will be leaving Washington,  D.C., after helping get another massive spending bill through Congress. Shelby and the next Speaker of the House, U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), are at odds, with McCarthy singling out Shelby, “We’ve got two members leading appropriations in the Senate who will no longer be here or be able to be held accountable to the constituents.” Shelby dismissed McCarthy as posturing in his fight for the Speaker position.
• On the other side of the Republican Party is U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) who will cast a “no” vote on the spending bill in one of his last official acts. Brooks rightly notes, “I’ve been fairly consistently voting against these bills that are chock full of bad things.” Brooks agrees with McCarthy, “So there’s some legitimacy to the argument that we will hold more sway that arguably is more consistent to the will of the American people since they just gave us the House of Representatives.”