7. Space Command could come to Alabama
- Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal is on the shortlist for potential homes of the Space Command, along with four Air Force bases in Colorado and Vandenberg AFB in California. The winner will be announced Thursday at the White House.
- President Donald Trump will be part of the announcement for the Space Command. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford said will be responsible for planning and carrying out space operations. He added Space Command will have 87 units at its launch with abilities including missile warning, satellite operations, space control and space support.
6. You can’t trust the media
- After using his platform on primetime cable television to float another unconfirmed conspiracy theory about President Donald Trump and his interaction with Russian oligarchs, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell had to walk back his statement and issue a retraction.
- Make no mistake, as this was a forced retraction. O’Donnell noted, “This afternoon, attorneys for the president sent us a letter asserting the story is false. They also demanded a retraction. Tonight, we are retracting the story.” But he still irresponsibly offered this caveat, “We don’t know whether the information is inaccurate. The fact is we do know it wasn’t ready for broadcast and for that I apologize.”
5. Democratic staffers act out at border facilites
- After House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) sent his staff to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility at the border, and the staff members were “disruptive” and wouldn’t follow instructions, the Department of Homeland Security has barred anymore Democratic staffers of the committee from visiting.
- Cummings had been planning on sending his staff back to the border this week to visit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP centers, but because staff was interfering with law enforcement, being rude to officers and refusing to leave a location after their allotted time, the ICE visit this week will be limited to two hours.
4. Trump could get three more Supreme Court nominations
- While U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) was speaking to the Morgan County Republican Party at their monthly meeting, he explained why it’s so important that President Donald Trump win reelection and Republicans keep the Senate.
- Brooks said that depending on how things go over the next few years, we could see not just one but “maybe two, maybe even three Supreme Court justices if President Trump can nominate and the Senate can confirm the two like the president has nominated so far.”
3. Free college for Birmingham students
- Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin announced on Twitter. “Starting in 2020, any Birmingham City School student that walks across the graduation stage will have the opportunity to attend any in-state two- or four-year school tuition-free.”
- Woodfin did clarify that students will only be funded to attend in-state public colleges, but so far, no explanation has been provided on how the program will be funded.
2. Roy Moore really wants you to pay attention to him
- Former Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has taken his opportunity to make headlines and responded in the ongoing feud between Alabama Republicans and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) by saying, “President Trump was right: she should go back to Somalia from whence she came.”
- Of course, Moore was only brought into this argument because after the Alabama Republican Party passed a resolution that Omar should be expelled from Congress, Omar responded by saying, “If you want to clean up politics, maybe don’t nominate an accused child molester as your Senate candidate.”
1. Mobile’s toll project not happening?
- After months of political wrangling and public outcry, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey declared the plans for a Mobile Bay Bridge and Bayview are effectively dead.
- Governor Ivey cited the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization’s failure to prioritize the project when she said, “With the action taken today, there is no pathway forward, and this project is dead.”
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