7. Results of the tax cuts are being felt on every level. More cuts are being suggested, including some using executive power
— 90 percent of Americans are receiving more take-home pay today than before the tax cuts, More employers are announcing benefit increases for employers.
— Trump and lawmakers continue to talk about making the tax cuts permanent, and now the treasury is considering a rule change that will cut capital gains tax for investors.
6. Russian Facebook pages are still attempting to sow discord in America. They aren’t being positive about Trump
— Facebook has discovered and deleted multiple pages with Russian origins that were pushing divisive social issues.
— The pages included “Resisters,” “Black Elevation,” and “Mindful Thinking,” and are pushing the “#AbolishICE” movement.
5. Birmingham could be staring down an $8.7 million dollar fine for blocking off a Confederate memorial
— The city of Birmingham continues to rack up a stupid $25,000 fine for every day the mayor of the city orders a monument in the city covered up by a black box on the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park.
— The state of Alabama’s law is pretty clear. You can not remove or alter a monument over 40 years old without the approval of the Committee on Alabama Monument Preservation.
4. Alabama Republicans running statewide have a double-digit lead, which is some good news for Democrats because the candidate at the top of the ticket is polling at about 40 percent
— A recent poll by Cygnal, a Montgomery-based research firm, shows that state-wide Democrats are all polling as well as generic Democrats. This places all the candidates for governor, lt. governor, attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state, in the low 40s.
— While this is not good news by any stretch of the imagination, Walt Maddox is up from a previous poll that had him at 28 points, but this probably will still not scare Governor Kay Ivey into a debate.
3. Democrat candidate Walt Maddox’s stated support for the Second Amendment is “deception on steroids“
— Previous answers to an NRA questionnaire are coming to light amid Maddox’s campaign putting out statements about his support of the Second Amendment after he was named a “Gun Sense” candidate by gun control organization “Moms Demand Action”.
— Maddox addressed proposed changes to the Second Amendment if he has a good reason, saying, “[L]et me make my position clear. I will never favor taking any existing constitutional right away from any American unless we, as a people, come to the conclusion that restraint of some rights helps ensure the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by all.”
2. Trump tweets that there is no collusion. Media pretends this is a strategy change, but it is not
— Trump tweeted two things that matter. He said, “Collusion is not a crime,” and, “there was No collusion.” Media seems fixated on a statement he has made numerous times, and is ignoring the second part of the tweet to make it appear like Trump is worried about collusion being discovered.
— All this nonsense is exactly why the RNC called out the media today, declaring the media is a bigger adversary to them than Democrats are.
1. The first trial in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation gets underway. Collusion is not included in the trial and Manafort says “no way” he flips
— The first day of Paul Manafort’s trial is full of news of his lavish lifestyle, including an ostrich feather coat, and they laid out how he set up shell companies off-shore, received millions of dollars of Ukrainian money to avoid taxes. None of this took place during the Trump campaign.
— When asked if he will consider “flipping,” his lawyer said “No,” which may mean there is no there-there on Russian and, in fact, a prosecutor told a judge that he doesn’t “anticipate that a government witness will utter the word ‘Russia.'”
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