7. Alabama working to make sure visitors are still allowed at care facilities
- Legislation sponsored by State Representative Debbie Wood (R-Valley) and carried by State Senator Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) that would require health care facilities to always allow at least one visitor for a patient or nursing home resident has passed the Alabama State Senate.
- Of course, this is in response to the restrictions put on hospitals and nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic for visitation. The bill will return to the House for concurrence or nonconcurrence, and if passed, it will go to Governor Kay Ivey to be signed.
6. Vaccine passports are closer to being banned
- The Alabama House Health Committee has approved the bill by State Senator Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) that would make requiring coronavirus vaccine “passports” illegal. This would also prohibit government agencies from requiring people to get vaccinated.
- The bill would prevent businesses and other establishments from requiring that people provide documentation that they’re vaccinated before receiving services. State Representative Paul Lee (R-Dothan) said some places already require them. He advised, “We have to be careful because we have hospitals, medical facilities, and even colleges that there are already [require vaccines], so, we didn’t want to muddy up that area.”
5. Monthly child tax credit could be extended to 2025
- President Joe Biden already included a $300 per month child tax credit for one year in his American Rescue Plan, but those payments would be extended until 2025 in a $1 trillion American Families Plan infrastructure and economic recovery package.
- This would be paid for by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and taxing capital gains as income, which has already been discussed by the Biden administration. It’s expected that the details of the American Families plan will be announced in the next month.
4. Renewed push for more criminal justice reform
- After the verdict for former police officer Derek Chauvin’s case was announced and he was found guilty on all counts of murder, Democrats in Alabama are now refocusing on police and criminal justice reform.
- State Representative Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa) said that while they “support law enforcement … we believe law enforcement should be held to a higher standard and their actions should be fair and responsible.”
3. Ohio officer’s name and 911 call released
- In Columbus, Ohio, the police officer who shot Ma’Khia Bryant has been identified as officer Nicholas Reardon; authorities have also released the 911 call and bodycam footage related to the incident. Reardon shot Bryant after she didn’t drop a knife and continued to attempt to use it on other girls at the scene.
- On the issue, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the shooting was “tragic,” adding, “We know that police violence disproportionately impacts Black and Latino people and communities and that Black women and girls like Black men and boys experience higher rates of police violence.”
2. LeBron James, the media and their Democrats embarrass themselves
- After the news and video of the recent shooting of a 16-year-old who was trying to stab another black teen clearly depicted the scene where a cop fired his weapon to protect someone, the American media, Democrats and the staff of the leaders of the free world decided to suggest the cops should not have intervened and the shooting was an act of “systemic racism and implicit bias.”
- Basketball superstar and communist Chinese superfan LeBron James tweeted the picture of the police officer who shot the 16-year-old and added the text “YOU’RE NEXT” to his 50 million followers. After realizing that this was a clear incitement of violence, he sheepishly took the tweet down and added another tweet declaring, “I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer,” even though he was creating hate himself.
1. Tuberville calls for more body cams and more training
- U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) reacted to the conviction of Derek Chauvin with a clear statement about police needing more funding, not less, for more training, more body cams and higher salaries.
- Tuberville believes the jury got it right, stating, “[A]fter we all saw the tape, almost 10 minutes of what the officer did, the jury did their job” and later added, we must “continue to look at the good things in law enforcement and make the things that are not as good better.”
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