A reoccurring theme within Anniston Star editorials and from its editorial staff on social media as of late has been to protest Rep. Mike Rogers’ (R-Saks) unwillingness to sit down with the paper’s editorial board.
Phillip Tutor, the commentary editor of the Star, has argued for Rogers to come to the editorial board and “to talk with him and hear his views on important things.”
According to Rogers, he has declined those invitations because of what he indicated was coming to a hostile atmosphere where there was little to gain.
“I used to do that several years ago,” Rogers said in an interview with Huntsville’s Newstalk 92.5 FM/770 AM’s Dale Jackson last week. “After the last couple of times, they were just incredibly rude while I was there. And I just decided there was no benefit in doing that. They’re always going to be liberals. We’re never going to agree. And I don’t have to be condescended to and voluntarily go along with it. So, I decided to stop doing it.”
“I like a lot of the people that work there,” he added. “But some of their editorial board just see the world differently than I do. So, there’s nothing productive to be gained from sitting down with the editorial board.”
BTW, @RepMikeRogersAL has a standing invitation to drop by the @AnnistonStar anytime and meet with our editorial board. We’d love to talk with him and hear his views on important things. He might even change our mind on certain items — if he’d show up. Again, that’s his choice. https://t.co/4GA6y1Ofk3
— Phillip Tutor (@ThePhillipTutor) September 20, 2018
Historically, the editorial pages of the Star have been a bastion of left-of-center beliefs going back over the course of many decades, and that editorial slant has continued since the departure earlier this year of H. Brandt Ayers, the paper’s former longtime publisher, and chairman amid sexual misconduct allegations.
Stepping in to fill that void of publisher and chairman was H. Brandt Ayers wife, Josephine Ayers. However, not only has Mrs. Ayers led a paper that remains hostile to conservatives and Republican politicians that serves an area that overwhelming votes Republican, but she is also a Democrat donor.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a site that tracks the finances and campaign finances of candidates for federal office, Josephine E. Ayers of Anniston has donated on four occasions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) during the 2018 midterm election cycle.
The “D-Triple-C,” as it is often referred, is the official campaign arm of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and describes itself as “the only political committee in the country whose principal mission is to support Democratic House candidates every step of the way to victory.”
Of those four occasions, Mrs. Ayers has given $250 on three occasions and $100 on one occasion going back to March 2017.
In theory, the DCCC is an organization that opposes Rogers’ candidacy. Therefore, not only does the Star oppose Rogers on policy grounds, but the head of the organization has publicly contributed to an entity that opposes Rogers’ candidacy.
It’s no wonder that Rogers declines the Star editorial board’s invitations.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
