7 Things: January 6 committee sees credibility weakened further, Marshall argues for minor transition ban and more …

7. Movement to boycott July 4 grows

• If you have Facebook, you surely have friends who are declaring that they will not celebrate July 4 because of the recent Supreme Court ruling wiping Roe v. Wade from the history books. These are the same people that found a reason every year to declare they wouldn’t celebrate July 4 because of Donald Trump’s presidency, but they still took the day off and ended up posting red, white and blue photos on Facebook.

• Inexplicably, one of these people is a school board member from California, Avila Farias, who wanted the world to know. She wrote on Facebook, “I haven’t celebrated 4th of July since 2016 and I don’t think it’s a holiday to celebrate.” She further noted, “Lastly, last Friday women’s reproductive rights were taken away! We are not in a place of progress or celebration when human rights are being taken away.” Apparently, she would rather still be a subject of Great Britain. 

6. California has released a list of individuals with concealed carry permits

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office has leaked a list of people within the state who have a concealed carry permit for a firearm. The list consists of individuals’ first and last names, addresses, dates of birth, and race.

• Executive director of Gun Owners of California Sam Paredes criticized the attorney general, saying he “is either massively incompetent, incredibly negligent, or willing to criminally leak information that he does not have the authority to leak.” The list was leaked on the California Department of Justice’s 2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal.

5. Huntsville maintains great record on clearing homicide cases

• The Huntsville Police Department has continued to have a higher clearance rate for homicides than the national average, and the homicide rate in the area is still declining. The national rate for solving homicides is at about 50%, while Huntsville had a rate of 100% in 2021. This has opened the department’s availability to work on more cold cases.

• Huntsville Police deputy chief Dewayne McCarver also said that the current economy and environment in Huntsville “is going to naturally bring the crime rate down, and if the crime rate is lower, we then have the resources to work on every single crime.”

4. Hovey wants ALGOP to reverse the decision on counting unregistered voter’s ballot

• The State Senate District 27 primary is still not settled after a provisional ballot was counted by the Alabama Republican Party (ALGOP), resulting in a tie between Auburn City Councilman Jay Hovey and State Senator Tom Whatley (R-Auburn). However, the vote that was counted was from an individual that was not registered to vote until after the primary, and current state law does not allow people to register to vote and vote on the same day.

• Hovey filed a motion with the State Executive Committee with the ALGOP requesting a rehearing on the election. Whatley agreed to the coin toss, but Hovey responded to Whatley’s statements by saying, “Of course he agreed to a coin toss today, he knows he lost then used an illegal vote to try to tie.” Previous to the provisional ballot being counted, Hovey had won the election by one vote.

3. Collins: With the abortion ban in place, Alabama should focus on adoption

• State Representative Terri Collins (R-Decatur) noted how Alabama needed to focus on improving adoption in the state with the Human Life Protection Act now in effect. Collins stated, “[I]f we are going to not have abortion at all or very many, then there are going to be more babies…we need to be proactive in making sure we’re helping with that.”

• Collins mentioned that adoption rules should be eased and referenced legislation she previously sponsored that “gave foster parents a place at the table when decisions were being made about adoption for children that they had kept. I think that we strengthen those.” Collins added, “[I] t’s just going to be working smarter to help women that are in very hard situations find the best path for them to take, and families that have been longing for a baby have better options than those very expensive ones that are out there. So yes, we’ve got work to do.”

2. Marshall argues that transgender law should move forward

• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a brief in favor of the state law that banned certain medical treatments and procedures for transgender youth, arguing that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. supported the state having a ban and it should not be blocked. Marshall said, “[N]o one—adult or child—has a right to transitioning treatments that is deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition…The State can thus regulate or prohibit those interventions for children, even if an adult wants the drugs for his child.” Marshall added, “even if some novel right to obtain transitioning treatments existed, the Act passes any level of scrutiny: It serves the compelling interest of protecting children from unproven, life-altering medical interventions, and no other approach would offer children in Alabama adequate protection.”

• Interestingly, a Pew Research Center showed that the majority of people believe that a person’s gender was assigned at birth and could not be changed has increased from previous years. In 2017, 54% believed that a person’s gender couldn’t be changed, but this increased to 56% in 2021, and is now at 60%. Only 38% of Democrats align with this thought, compared to the 86% of Republicans. According to the poll, 58% of respondents said that transgender athletes should only compete as their birth gender, 58% said that in college and professional athletics, transgender women shouldn’t be allowed to compete, and 68% of people said that if allowed, “transgender girls would have a competitive advantage over other girls.”

1. Bombshell testimony continues to fall apart under scrutiny

• Although the Secret Service immediately debunked the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson where she claimed former-President Donald Trump attempted to take on his protective detail on January 6 to head to the U.S. Capitol, the impact of her testimony was further blunted by other issues raised by people she attempted to implicate during her testimony.

• White House lawyer Eric Herschmann disputed the claim that Hutchinson wrote a note about a more full-throated response from the White House at chief of staff Mark Meadows’s direction and instead said it was Herschmann who wrote it. Hutchinson also suggested Rudy Giuliani and former senior Justice Department official Jeff Clark were working together on election matters, but they have never even spoken. And on the matter of the Secret Service, it has now been reported that the Secret Service was never informed of what Hutchinson was going to testify to, nor were they given a chance to refute it. There is also a claim of armed rioters, but only five people out of around 750 suspects have been charged with possession of a firearm, one of which wasn’t in Washington at the time. If not for an irreparably-biased media, this farce would be over.