7 Things: Two Americas on display, Senate is ready for impeachment, grocery tax removal seems unlikely and more …

7. No cash bail for criminals

• State Senator Cam Ward (R-Alabaster) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would deny the right to bail for defendants accused of serious crimes, a move which is the exact opposite of what other states are doing by ending cash bail.
• Ward’s reasoning is that murdered college student Aniah Blanchard was killed by Ibraheem Yazeed was out on bail on for two counts of kidnapping, two counts of robbery and one count of attempted murder. Ward’s bill kills cash bail for murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, sexual torture, human trafficking and kidnapping.

6. Trump should be thanking Sessions

• The economist who is viewed as being the one to build the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Stephen Moore, has said that former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the one President Donald Trump should thank for winning the 2016 election
• Moore, a supporter of Sessions’ 2020 U.S. Senate campaign, said that Trump “probably would not have won – the nomination of the party if it had not been for Sessions.” He also shared how successful of a senator he thinks Sessions was in the past.

5. Tuberville is saying what he thinks of the Democrats

• During a radio appearance, former Auburn Football coach Tommy Tuberville mentioned how Democrats have remained upset over past elections, saying, “They don’t accept it, so what we’ve got now is a countdown for a civil war.”
• Tuberville also went on to describe the Democrats’ tactics to get elected as “lying, stealing, cheating,” adding, “They want a dictatorship – that’s what they want.”

4. Illegal immigrants are being returned

• Flights have been going from Tucson, Arizona, to Guadalajara, Mexico, to return illegal immigrants that have all been deemed deportable. According to the Department of Homeland Security, this is meant to deter illegal immigrants from returning.
• It’s expected that 250 migrants will be flown to Mexico per week starting at the end of January. DHS spokeswoman Heather Swift said, “This is just another example of the Trump Administration working with the Government of Mexico to address the ongoing border security crisis.” She added that working with Mexico “has allowed us to provide court dates to more than 55,000 individuals.”

3. Grocery tax removal faces big hurdles

• Every Alabama legislative session, some legislator decides they are going to attempt to remove the sales tax on groceries in the state. Every time, the hangup seems to be how the revenue, up to $400 million a year, that will be lost will end up being replaced.
• State Rep. Steve Clouse (R-Ozark), the chairman of the House Ways and Means General Fund Budget Committee, highlighted this and pointed out that this will be revenue that would be lost that is directed to the education budget; he doesn’t believe increases to property taxes and income taxes will be very popular among legislators or voters.

2. The Senate is ready for impeachment, new info released

• As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gets ready to go through “some preliminary steps” to get ready for impeachment, the House Democrats released new documents setting off a media frenzy about the behavior of Rudy Giuliani and his “associates” in Ukraine which includes possibly tailing the U.S. Ambassador before she was eventually removed.
• McConnell also warned that while some people might be asking for new testimony to take place in the Senate and the Republicans could call witnesses. He mentioned that the “53 of us have reached an agreement,” referring to Republican members and the votes McConnell has to pass an “organizing resolution” to structure the trial.

1. Two Americas on display Tuesday night

• Six of the leading Democrats took to the debate stage in Iowa to argue about whether U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) thinks a woman can be president, if we should spend $1.5 trillion or $40 trillion on free health care, give free college tuition to millionaires and various other trivial things, but the big story continued to be that former Vice President Joe Biden survived another debate without anyone going after him on anything.
• As this debate was happening, President Donald Trump was standing on stage at a rally in Wisconsin talking about a booming economy, killing terrorists and calling impeachment a “total hoax.”