7. Hate is so prevalent in our society that the “victims” have to fabricate it

• A sports talk show host in New Orleans, Louisiana, has been fired from his job after his employer found out that he sent a “homophobic” tweet to himself and then demanded $2 million dollars to settle a “workplace harassment case.”
• WWL’s Seth Dunlap claimed someone at the station sent the tweet after he came out and wrote a post on the station’s website about the trial of being gay in the sports media. An investigation found the tweet came from his phone and the station claims he was attempting to extort the parent company.

6. People aren’t going to turn in their guns

• With former Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) out of the 2020 presidential race, gun-grabbing will be approached more subtly, but the idea isn’t working for New Zealand, which implemented a gun “buyback” program.
• Some estimates placed the number of prohibited firearms at around 175,000, but only 32,000 have been turned in with the December 20 deadline approaching. That means roughly 18% of the soon to be illegal firearms have been turned in.

5. Impeachment transcripts are out

• The first round of transcripts from the impeachment inquiry have been released by the House Democrats, which included the testimony of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanivitch and Michael McKinley, a former senior advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
• The transcripts revealed that Yovanovitch testified that she was told about Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to push her out, but McKinley testified that he resigned because he saw something he hadn’t seen “in 37 years in the Foreign Service,” which was State Department officials trying to gather negative information the president’s opponents.

4. Tommy Tuberville thought Alabama fans wouldn’t vote for him

• Despite the fact that Tommy Tuberville is a former Auburn Football coach, he’s still leading in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama. Tuberville has now said that he thinks it was his coaching past that brought him so much support.
• Tuberville explained that people around the state and country really love football, which is part of why he thinks he’ll get Alabama’s vote, adding it is “because they know I did something that’s hard to do – it’s coach football. And I won at it, you know. And people like winners.”

3. Merrill doesn’t think Sessions is going to run

• During a radio interview, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said that he’s been with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions “a couple of times” recently, and said, “Not one time did [Sessions] mention to me that he might be interested in coming back and retaining his old Senate seat.”
• Merrill also noted that if Sessions does get in the race, it’ll be major news “that will receive national coverage,.” We’ll have the answer for sure by 5:00 p.m. on Friday when the period to qualify for the March 3 GOP primary ends.

2. Angry crowd confronts Alabama sheriff and district attorney

• The shooting death of a black man during an altercation with police in late October sparked an emotional meeting where members of the black community demanded the release of body cam recordings and threatened to vote out elected officials.
• Madison County Sherriff Kevin Turner told the crowd that the shooting was justified, explaining, “Whether you want to believe it or not, there was a weapon involved.” Turner added the 39-year-old Dana Fletcher “pointed the weapon at the officer.”

1. Maybe Trump won’t get booed this time

• President Donald Trump is planning to attend the LSU vs. Alabama game in Tuscaloosa this weekend, which will be just before Louisiana holds its runoff election for the gubernatorial race on November 16.
• The Louisiana runoff is between Governor John Bel Edwards and businessman Eddie Rispone. Trump has already been vocal about his support of Rispone, tweeting that “John Bel Edwards is always fighting our MAGA Agenda.”