7. Orr is looking for tax cuts

• State Senator Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) is trying to find ways to reduce the tax burden. He said that tax cuts should be considered and pointed to federal dollars that are coming in, budgets, pay raises and dealing with the coronavirus. 
• Orr said one thing that could be considered is taking a “look at raising the standard deduction for those that take the standard deduction.” He added, “[W]e’re looking at an inflationary environment around the bend. I believe it is already here. But I think it is only going to get more pronounced in the months ahead.”

6. Alabama continues to see labor shortages

• Nationally, Alabama is seeing the 11th-largest labor shortage, according to the latest study from the site CareerCloud, which included data from ZipRecruiter, Indeed, CareerBuilder and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
• Washington, D.C. has the largest labor shortage, with 2.37 openings per jobless person, while Alabama has 1.1 job openings per jobless person. Since July 31, job openings have increased 6.9%, or 10.9 million people, but there were also 3.98 million people who quit their jobs in July. 

5. Alabama will sue over vaccine mandate

• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has made it known that once there is a formal rule for the vaccine mandate that President Joe Biden introduced last week, “we will file our lawsuit.” Marshall said this after receiving several questions about if anything would be done. 
• According to Marshall, the “vaccine mandate is unprecedented in its audacity and unlawful in its application.” He added that Biden and his “administration knows this full well. The State of Alabama will not allow such an authoritarian power grab to go unchecked.”

4. Rand Paul roasts Blinken on airstrike that killed aid worker

• The review of the U.S. airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, is still ongoing, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has admitted that the Biden administration is unaware of whether someone killed in the strike was an ISIS-K member or an aid worker. This came after U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) questioned Blinken on the matter. 
• Blinken said, “The administration is, of course, reviewing that strike and I’m sure that a full assessment will be forthcoming,” but ultimately admitted that he didn’t know. Paul criticized the lack of information, saying, “You’d think you’d kind of know before you off somebody with a Predator drone whether he’s an aid worker or an ISIS-K.”

3. Facebook removes Ivey’s post

• Governor Kay Ivey had a post on Facebook removed for violating “Community Standards,” which comes just weeks after Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth received similar treatment from the platform.  
• Ivey’s post was about standing up to President Joe Biden on his vaccine mandate, and the post has since been republished. Ivey stated, “If big tech thinks they can silence us and that I won’t fight back, then honey, they haven’t met me. They have another thing coming. I’m not backing down. I never will. We’re fighting Washington. We’ll fight big tech too.”

2. Half of the ICU patients in Alabama have the coronavirus

• The Alabama Hospital Association has said 50% of the Intensive Care Unit patients in the state are hospitalized with the coronavirus, and 24 of the people hospitalized in the state are pregnant. 
• There are 2,474 people hospitalized in total, and 44 of those are children. There are 17 children in the ICU and eight on ventilators. According to the association, 83% of adults hospitalized are unvaccinated, 3% are partially vaccinated and 14% are fully vaccinated. The good news is that the number of those hospitalized is going down, and some doctors believe we have passed the surge of the Delta variant.

1. The actual coup attempt came from the Deep State

• In a move that will make Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley, an advisor without a command position, a bigger star among the media and their Democrats, a new book says that Milley was working behind then-President Donald Trump’s back on multiple fronts, including with foreign generals. This makes it clear that the civilian control of the military was usurped, which is treason and should lead to, at minimum, Milley’s resignation, but it should lead to more. Trump called this report “fake news” but said he should be charged if true.
• If the book’s report is accurate, Milley was reportedly running a one-man foreign policy mission and convening secret meetings where he told other members of the military not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved, to which they agreed, even though he is an advisor and not a commander. To make matters worse, Milley made secret phone calls to his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, and told him that he would call him ahead of any military action. Those who despise Trump more than anything else have decided that these acts are heroic and not treasonous.