7 Things: Conservatives wrongly blamed for LGBTQ club attack; Barfoot: Good schools won’t lose to choice; and more …

7. Turkey pardons are dumb fun, we should get a pardon from this terrible holiday

• Biden pardoned two terribly-named turkeys, Chocolate and Chip, but took the time to joke about our untrusted voting system, “First of all, the votes are in. They’ve been counted and verified. There’s no ballot stuffing. There’s no fowl play. The only red wave this season is going to be if a German shepherd, Commander, knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table.” Wakka wakka.
• Ivey did it first, she pardoned two terribly-named turkeys, Gobbles and Cranberry, in early November. If Ivey wants to help Alabamians, she should bar people from eating dry turkey and stuffing in the state of Alabama.

6. Shelby recounts Jan. 6

• Outgoing senior U.S. Sen., and namesake of more buildings in Alabama than there are Chick-fil-As, Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa) has recounted to aldotcom his view on the events of the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan.6, 2021. He was not happy, “I never thought I’d see that in America.” Senator Shelby has been in D.C. for 44 years and this was something that concerned him on that day, “‘Were we concerned?’ Yeah, we were concerned about the nation first.”
• “I never thought that would happen that a mob would storm the U.S. Capitol while the House and Senate were counting votes for the election … electoral votes. Never did it cross my mind like that. But it was real.” And more troublingly, “‘(A SWAT team member) is right across from (me) putting his machine gun together. He says, ‘Get down! Get down, everybody, get down!’ I didn’t get down on the floor, I got stuck. I’m tall. I thought, ‘Wow.’ You knew it was real then. You could hear the commotion.”

5. Vaccine mandate is still in place?

• Most people may not know it, as we have all basically moved on from COVID-19, but there is still a vaccine mandate for certain healthcare workers. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and AGs from 21 states have called for its end.
• In a letter to the Biden administration, they implore the White House end this abomination, declaring accurately that, the policy is “neither lawful nor medically justified.” Marshall says the mandate, “violated the rights of health care workers and worsened staffing shortages in that sector, especially in rural and frontier states like Alabama.”

4. Alabama still being hit by RSV and flu

• RSV and flu are taxing Alabama’s hospitals, the flu virus hit the state earlier than other states and shows some signs of breaking in the state with a lower rate of infection for the week of Nov. 6 than the weeks before. At peak times, the wait at Children’s Hospital of Alabama was up to 10 hours.
• Outpatient services are still be consumed at an increased rate, in Alabama and beyond. Not surprisingly, flu vaccinations are down from other years, they believe this is because the past few years have had mild flu season; trust is a huge factor here as well. Flu shots are recommended for almost all Americans who are 6 months old or older.

3. No more executions

• Executions in Alabama are not good enough right now, we must stop them and figure out how to better kill convicted murderers, according to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
• She wants the pending justice being delivered to convicted murderers Alan Eugene Miller and James Edward Barber halted and no more justice for murderers scheduled until the state’s execution protocol is reviewed. To Ivey’s credit, she notes this is an issue with legal wrangling from murderers, their lawyers and sympathetic judges that manipulate the system, “I don’t buy for a second the narrative being pushed by activists that these issues are the fault of the folks at Corrections or anyone in law enforcement, for that matter. I believe that legal tactics and criminals hijacking the system are at play.” Ivey is right, Alabama needs to figure out how to play this game better.

2. School choice seems to be gaining steam

• Students of parents lucky enough to send their kids to the worst schools in the state will now have some school choice options for their kids. Other parents in other bad schools? Too bad. Alabama’s conservative Legislature thinks the schools are just fine and fear the hit those fine schools will receive if parents are given options.
• These are terrible excuses not to act, and State Sen. William Barfoot (R-Pike Road) calls out the argument that kids will flee wonderful schools systems. “If your school system is truly a good school system, you won’t have a mass exodus from that school because parents are satisfied that their children are getting a great education and they will continue to stay there. So you won’t have a[n] exodus from that school system…if you have a good school system: guess what? March on. You won’t be affected.”

1. Some people cannot be criticized anymore

• The American media is truly running with the narrative that anyone who criticized drag queens in schools or any LGBTQ legislation is, at minimum, OK with the slaughter at a gay bar in Colorado Springs or fully supportive of the attack. There is literally no evidence backing this assertion up. Either way, they will try to silence those opinions.
• While the attacker is facing murder and hate crime charges, conservatives are being maligned as accessories. Like cowards, the Washington Post changed a headline of an opinion piece that originally read, “The Colorado Springs shooting is rooted in right-wing homophobia,” before it was changed to, “The Colorado massacre cannot be blamed on mental illness. It’s rooted in hate.”