7. Gun sales will be tracked differently by most credit cards company
- Visa, Mastercard, and American Express will all be adding gun purchases on their credit cards to a new category and comply with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that will remove gun purchases from “general merchandise.”
- Visa released a statement saying, “Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules.”
6. Philadelphia is ready to be a border city
- Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) has already sent busloads of migrants from the southern border to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago, and now Philadelphia officials are preparing in the event migrants are sent to their city next.
- A spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Kevin Lessard, has said, “The city is inventorying existing resources should those seeking safe refuge find their way to Philadelphia.” Abbott has been sending migrants to self-proclaimed sanctuary cities as there has been an unmitigated flow of migrants from the southern border.
5. Special master issue not resolved
- While it appears a judge will allow a special master to go through the mass amount of documents seized in the raid at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, there are some issues to resolve.
- Questions over who will pay for the special master are in dispute and the Department of Justice filed an appeal at the last minute to the special master being appointed at all. The results of this special master review will not be shared with the public because the information could be part of an informal “damage assessment” will be classified.
4. Military regulations were violated during Biden’s speech, according to Rogers
- According to U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-Saks) and two Republican colleagues, when President Joe Biden addressed the country on September 1, since there were Marine servicemen in the background was a violation of military regulations and protocol.
- In a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the group wrote, “The President’s use of active duty Marines as political props undermines the apolitical nature of our servicemembers and erodes trust in our military. American men and women in uniform swear a solemn oath to defend the Constitution. They do not serve a political party.”
3. Harris has joined Biden in comparing 9/11 to political squabbles
- In line with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris has discussed the current “threats” the country is seeing and was asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd if the threats “from within” measure up to those seen on 9/11. Harris responded by stating, “When I think about what we’ve been seeing as far as the attacks from within, I wish that we would approach it the same way instead of through some partisan lens. I think that is a threat, and I think that it is very dangerous, and it makes us weaker.”
- Harris went on to add, “we look to the fact that there are 11 people right now running for Secretary of State – the keepers of the integrity of the voting system in their state – who are election deniers.” And added later, “When we look at where we are, we have to admit that there are attacks from within…and we need to take it seriously, and we need to stand up together, all of us, and think of it not through a partisan lens, but as Americans.”
2. Birmingham needs more law enforcement
- The best solution for the ongoing crime problem in Birmingham is more law enforcement, according to former U.S. Attorney Jay Town. He said they need “a whole of law enforcement approach where it’s not just BPD or the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that are out policing these violent criminals.”
- Town suggested using “the ATF, the FBI, the DEA, the attorney general’s office, ALEA, and even the Jefferson County’s DA office and surrounding counties.” Town went on to say, “These gang members in Birmingham are increasingly violent … I do expect that you’ll see from Mayor Woodfin they’ll be a task force formed or if they are already formed, you’ll start to see them become more active.”
1. Something has to be done about fentanyl trafficking
- Last week, seven people were arrested in Decatur in connection to a drug trafficking ring and drug overdoses. A week before, a 15-year-old in Mobile died after snorting what ended up being fentanyl and her 17-year-old boyfriend was arrested. In an effort to combat fentanyl trafficking, State Rep. Matt Simpson is planning to approach the issue in the upcoming legislative session, and he’s said in a news release that his legislation “will make sure that these drug dealers who are selling fentanyl to our kids will actually be put in prison where they belong.”
- Simpson has said dealers “use their drug money to just pay the fine and then go right back out and keep selling this poison. I want to make sure that we keep these dealers of death off of our streets and out of our neighborhoods by adding prison time to the punishments for this horrible crime.”
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