Jeb Bush slams Donald Trump for “rhetoric of divisiveness”
Jeb Bush took aim at fellow Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Tuesday, criticizing his “rhetoric of divisiveness.” Speaking to more than 100 people at a restaurant in Council Bluffs, the former Florida governor said the Republican Party should focus on bringing people together. “Whether it is Donald Trump or Barack Obama, their rhetoric of divisiveness is wrong. A Republican will never win by striking fear in people’s hearts,” Bush said. Trump, the outspoken reality television star, has been critical of Bush recently. Last week Trump called Bush “a joke” for suggesting that Mexican immigrants cross the border illegally as “an act of love.” Talking to reporters on his last stop on a two-day swing through Iowa, Bush said that Republicans should be optimistic and offer people hope for a better life. “Mr. Trump has every right to have every belief he has. He’s going to run, that’s fine,” Bush said. “But I don’t want to be associated with the kind of vitriol that he’s spewing out these days.” In his prepared remarks, Bush touted his record of cutting taxes and growing jobs as Florida governor, stressed his plans to increase border security and criticized the Iranian nuclear deal. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
International trade body rules in favor of Alabama tire manufacturers; Jeff Sessions weighed in
After testimony from Alabama’s junior U.S. senator, Jeff Sessions, the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of American tire manufacturers based in Alabama. A news release issued by Sessions’ office praised the commission, which ruled the communist government of China improperly subsidized their domestic tire industry, resulting in a “material injury” to American manufacturing interests. “The International Trade Commission’s decision to impose relief from illegal Chinese tire imports is good news for Alabama workers,” said Sessions in a prepared statement on Tuesday. “The ITC had already found that China was improperly subsidizing tire production in the past, but when that relief expired those unfair practices resumed and American workers suffered. The day is past when the United States can stand to see a single additional job lost due to unfair practices by our trading partners,” Sessions said. Sessions had previously testified before the commission in June, where he argued forcefully against China’s protectionist policies designed to undercut foreign competition. “I don’t accept the notion that we should send thank you notes to nations that ship us goods at illegally subsidized prices, that have the result of eliminating American competitors and shifting their unemployment to the United States,” testified Sessions before the commission. “As a result, this nation is facing very serious challenges to its strong manufacturing base. Currency manipulation, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers hammer American industries and workers. “Our trade competitors strongly desire access to our market, and we can benefit from the import of foreign goods. However, we have every right, and a duty, to ensure that such access is accompanied with compliance with the rules of trade. This is not free trade. And this nation cannot be so tied to a religion of free trade that we enable such bad behavior.” Among the Alabamian beneficiaries of the ruling would be Michelin plants in Dothan and Tuscaloosa and a Goodyear plant in Gadsden. The commission plans to make its final report public by Aug. 24, 2015.
Alabama’s congressional delegation reacts to Iran nuclear deal
After ongoing talks that spanned 20 months, a deal aimed at reining in Iran’s nuclear program was announced Tuesday by President Barack Obama. Led by the United States, Iran and a group of six other nations agreed to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade with the goal of easing global fears of a nuclear-armed Iran threatening the Middle East. In return, Iran would get billions of dollars in relief from lifting international oil and financial sanctions. Congress has some say in the future of this deal. The Associated Press reports Congress has a 60-day review period “during which Obama cannot make good on any concessions to the Iranians. U.S. lawmakers could hold a vote of disapproval and take further action.” Here are reactions from the Alabama delegation to the announced nuclear agreement between the United States, Iran, France, China, United Kingdom, Russia. We will be updating this post as they come in: U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby: Today’s announced nuclear agreement with Iran is a bad deal for the American people. For the past several months, I have been concerned that President Obama was chasing a deal with Iran just for the sake of reaching an agreement. This deal wrongly prioritizes Iran’s objectives rather than the goal of the United States: to end Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (AL-01): From the start of these talks I have warned that President Obama and his negotiating team were desperate for a foreign policy victory, and I fear the safety of Americans and our allies in the Middle East will be at greater risk because of this deal. Iran is no friend of the United States, and we should all be concerned about what they will do with billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Even Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey has stated that sanctions relief would allow Iran to send more money to terrorist groups in the Middle East. Congress will now have an opportunity to closely scrutinize and vote on this agreement, and I call on my colleagues to look past the short-term rhetoric and instead focus on the long-term implications this deal could have on our national security and the safety of our allies abroad. U.S. Rep. Martha Roby (AL-02): We’ve known for weeks now that Secretary Kerry and negotiators have been back-peddling, but I had hoped that by speaking out we could encourage them to strengthen their adherence to American interests. Unfortunately, that hasn’t worked. The Obama Administration has insisted for years that Iran does not have a right to enrich uranium and that any lifting of sanctions would come with requiring Iran to acknowledge and dismantle their nuclear weapon program. What was announced today fails to meet even those basic objectives, and Americans should be very disappointed that President Obama and Secretary Kerry abandoned their own goals to strike a deal with Iran. More broadly, I fear this deal will work to aggravate an already dangerous and volatile region. It’s no secret that Iran is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. I fear this deal will only embolden those efforts with little more than hope that they’ll change their ways. Today, Iran’s decades of hostility and deception has been rewarded with a plum deal that ensures they’ll have a nuclear weapon before long. The message that sends to other rogue nations is dangerous and alarming. Congress has 60 days to review this deal and render its judgment. We must use this time to inspect this agreement carefully and judge it based on what was promised to Congress and to the American people. I believe my colleagues on both sides of the aisle must prepare to stand up and assert our authority to stop a potentially bad deal from going forward on behalf of the American people. U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (AL-03): I was very disappointed in today’s announcement of the Iran nuclear deal. Iran is a state that cannot be trusted and this deal rewards bad behavior while compromising our national and global security. I am completely opposed to this deal. U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (AL-04) via Facebook: I am skeptical on the #IranDeal + fear lifted sanctions will fund instability in the Middle East. As the saying goes, the devil will be in the details #transparency #verification U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07): I commend the efforts of President Obama, Secretary Kerry, Secretary Moniz and their team in securing a diplomatic agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. To be sure, it is not in the interest of the United States or its allies for Iran to ever develop a nuclear weapon. I agree with President Obama that no deal is better than a bad deal and it is through that prism that I will thoroughly review and evaluate this agreement. We cannot sign any agreement with Iran based on trust, nor should sanctions be loosed unless Iran meets its obligations and such compliance can be verified. We must remain ever vigilant in our insistence that Iran never reaches nuclear capability.
House panel continues partisan probe into Benghazi
A special House committee on the 2012 Benghazi attacks has devolved from an investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Libya into a political fight over Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s emails and private computer server – a battle that is likely to stretch into the 2016 presidential election year. Republicans say Clinton has only herself and the department she once ran to blame for the shift in focus amid her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, who served as secretary of state in 2012 when militants attacked the U.S. mission in Benghazi, chose to use a private email server, rather than a government server – and later deleted thousands of emails she said were not related to her work. The State Department, meanwhile, has struggled to produce a trove of emails involving Clinton and some of her key staffers. The resulting impasse has prolonged the committee’s work, said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the Benghazi panel. “The reason we are having a conversation about her email arrangement is because of her unusual email arrangement with herself, and not because of anything we’ve done on the Benghazi committee,” Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said in an interview. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the panel has assumed a new purpose: “Derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential efforts by any means necessary.” “Anybody can now see that’s what it’s all about,” Cummings said in an interview. He’d like to see Clinton testify before the committee as soon as possible. There’s no such session scheduled, even though Clinton is expected on Capitol Hill Tuesday to meet with congressional Democrats. Her campaign, meanwhile, has posted a 3,600-word fact sheet on the candidate’s use of a private email server during her time at the State Department. The statement said Clinton’s use of a private email account was widely known at the State Department and that department policy during her tenure permitted her to use a non-government email for work. What’s undisputed is that the select committee’s work will continue into 2016, guaranteeing that Benghazi – and the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens – will shadow Clinton during her second White House bid. Clinton herself may have provided a glimpse of that future when she declared during a CNN interview last week that she “never had a subpoena” compelling the production of emails sent while she was secretary of state. Gowdy pounced, releasing a subpoena he issued to Clinton in March to “correct the inaccuracy” of her claim. In fact, he had publicly announced delivery of the document at the time. He didn’t tell Clinton to go on TV, Gowdy said, “and I certainly didn’t tell her what to say. Had she not said what she said to the CNN reporter, you would not have seen my homely self on TV.” Cummings rose to Clinton’s defense, calling her statement “an honest mistake” and denouncing the GOP’s release of the subpoena as a “stunt” in an ongoing “taxpayer-funded attack” on the Democratic front-runner. Cummings and other Democrats voted against creating the panel last year, saying that at least eight previous investigations had disproved a variety of conspiracy theories about the attacks nearly three years ago. Notions that U.S. forces were ordered to “stand down” during the attacks or that Clinton played a direct role in security decisions are false, congressional investigators say. Gowdy maintains that the committee is not concerned about conspiracies, but intent on learning the full truth about the attacks. The focus on Clinton is because, “No. 1, she was secretary of state at all relevant times. That’s a pretty big fact,” he said. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the American people deserve to know what happened. “We still don’t have the answers because the (Obama) administration and Secretary Clinton refuse to turn over the relevant documents for the American people to see,” Boehner said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We are not going to walk away from this,” Boehner said. “The State Department is rolling these emails that they do have over to us at a rate of about 4,000 a month. This is going to go on throughout the rest of this year.” Despite her claims to the contrary, Clinton has not been fully forthcoming about her emails and other important documents, Gowdy and other Republicans said. For instance, while Clinton has said she turned over “the entire public record” of her emails, “we know that is not accurate,” Gowdy said, citing at least 15 work-related emails from Clinton’s private server that the State Department says it cannot find. Republicans also are frustrated that the State Department has been slow to release emails sent by key Clinton staffers, including top aides such as Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin. While Democrats accuse Gowdy of stalling a planned interview with Clinton to ensure it happens closer to the 2016 election, Gowdy said any delay is the fault of the State Department, which has failed to produce emails the committee is seeking. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the Benghazi committee, said the panel has become exactly what he and other Democrats feared it would be when it was created in May 2014: an ongoing, taxpayer-funded effort to diminish Clinton’s presidential campaign. “To whatever degree this was ever about Benghazi, those days are gone,” Schiff said, predicting that Republicans will spend the next six months or more “going after” Clinton. While that is to be expected from the Republican National Committee, Schiff said, “it’s not OK for a taxpayer-funded committee that is supposed to be finding the truth.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Robert Bentley testifies before Congress on Alabama prison reforms
Gov. Robert Bentley on Tuesday testified before a U.S. House panel on the topic of recent reforms in the Alabama statehouse designed to limit long prison sentences for nonviolent offenders and increase inmate rehabilitation efforts, to reduce rates of recidivism and the high cost of housing the state’s incarcerated population. In a statement shortly after a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Bentley touted Alabama’s reforms as a model for the nation. “Prison reform is an important issue in Alabama,” Bentley said. “Alabama has made significant progress over the last year to improve our criminal justice system, ease some of the challenges in our prison system and maximize the amount of state dollars we spend for the Alabama Department of Corrections. “I believe that our prison reform efforts have created a healthy foundation that can, over time, transform the landscape of the entire criminal justice system for the better.” Alabama, in turn, is following suit on a larger national push for “smart justice,” involving changes to federal sentencing guidelines, a move away from mandatory minimums to give more discretion to judges and focusing on giving former inmates viable alternatives away from criminal activity. Bentley praised congressional leaders for opening its doors to state leaders like him, invoking the old saw about states being the “laboratories of democracy.” “States can be laboratories of changes, creating unique opportunities that can address problems. I believe that Alabama is a national model for prison reform, and it was an honor to share our efforts with Congress,” Bentley said in a prepared statement. The move comes just a day after legislative leaders in Arizona called on Alabama Rep. Mike Jones for counsel on the changes he helped institute along with Sen. Cam Ward during the regular Legislative Session. Jones said on the occasion of his visit to the Grand Canyon state that he, too, hopes Alabama’s recent amendments to its criminal code can help show a way forward for a nation whose prison system is clogged with nonviolent offenders.
Del Marsh is right to file gambling bill
Bravo, Del! Bravo. Filing a gambling bill this Special Session is the right thing to do. No matter what position conservatives take on gambling it’s hard to argue that the issue shouldn’t be put before the voters of the state. The Auburn study on the proposal the Senate was looking at during session was so promising that it’s worth discussing. As we previously have written, a look at the numbers in the AUM reports: A staggering 13,000 plus jobs will be created; $331,667,963 is the expected annual revenue from a state-run lottery system, and; Depending on the tax rate, the estimated revenue from expanded casinos will be with a rate of 13 percent, $63,015,148, or up to $73,863,632 with a 15 percent tax rate. That adds up to nearly $400 million in tax revenue to be collected for the general fund with the expansion of both. The gambling bill has the support of Birmingham Mayor William Bell, many in the business community as represented by a coalition headed by Charles McCrary and Pat Dye, and of enough people that it’s worth discussing. Here’s to hoping Gov. Robert Bentley reconsiders his steadfast opposition to allowing the bill to come up in the Special Session or that the legislators are able to reach the majority needed to bring it up themselves. The people deserve the opportunity to vote.
Hillary Clinton says nation needs “growth and fairness economy”
Laying out her agenda to help American workers, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that if she’s elected to the White House she will seek to build a “growth and fairness economy” that would rejuvenate wages that have remained stagnant since the Great Recession. In her first major economic speech of her presidential campaign, Clinton vowed to crack down on Wall Street excess and warned that a large field of Republican White House hopefuls would promote tax cuts and a return to policies that would balloon the national debt. She singled out three GOP candidates by name, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whom she accused of failing to understand the plight of workers. “You may have heard Governor Bush say last week that Americans just need to work longer hours. Well, he must not have met very many American workers,” Clinton said at The New School in New York, urging Bush to speak to nurses, truckers or fast-food workers. “They don’t need a lecture. They need a raise.” Bush, during an event in Sioux City, Iowa, said Clinton believed that it didn’t matter that 6.5 million people were only able to work part-time instead of holding full-time jobs. “Hillary Clinton believes that 2 percent growth, apparently the new normal, is acceptable,” Bush said. He told reporters that Clinton’s “policies are going to suppress wage growth. Her policies are a continuation of the Obama economics which has been a complete disaster.” Republicans note that under President Barack Obama, the workplace participation rate has declined to its lowest level since 1977. In an agenda-setting address, Clinton sought to appeal to liberal voters within her party who have questioned her willingness to regulate Wall Street and have rallied behind her chief Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The message also appeared aimed at anxious voters who have seen little gains in their paychecks even as the nation moves past the Great Recession. “As the shadow of crisis recedes and longer-term challenges come into focus, I believe we have to build a growth and fairness economy,” Clinton said. “You can’t have one without the other.” Clinton said she would propose more public investment in infrastructure projects, advance renewable energy and promote tax cuts for small business owners. She expressed support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, an overhaul to the tax code, and policy proposals related to child care and paid family leave. Clinton, who maintained strong ties to Wall Street as a New York senator, pushed back against the industry, saying the largest financial institutions had too often focused on short-term profits instead of helping grow the economy. She expressed outrage at accounts of money laundering and currency manipulation involving several major financial firms, calling them “shocking,” and promised criminal prosecutions of bad bankers. One of the firms she identified, HSBC, paid former President Bill Clinton $200,000 to speak at a Florida conference in 2011, an appearance that was cleared by the State Department despite an ongoing federal money-laundering probe that led HSBC to reach a 2012 settlement with prosecutors. The former secretary of state said few rogue traders had faced consequences for malfeasance, a subtle swipe at the Obama administration, which took no action against the individual financial titans who pursued risky fiscal practices. “This is wrong, and on my watch it will change,” she said. Clinton also vowed to expand the Dodd-Frank law passed by Congress in 2010, which tightened regulation of financial institutions, and said she would bolster government oversight of hedge funds and high-frequency traders. The speech offered Clinton’s most extensive critique of Bush, a top contender for the GOP nomination. Clinton said the nation’s economy should not be measured by “some arbitrary growth targets untethered to people’s lives and livelihoods.” That was a veiled reference to Bush, who has said he would set a goal of 4 percent economic growth, including 19 million jobs, if elected president. She also lobbed criticism at Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was launching his campaign Monday. Rubio’s tax proposal is a “budget-busting giveaway to the super-wealthy,” Clinton said, and she called Walker an example of a GOP governor who had made his name “stomping on workers’ rights.” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said Clinton wanted to “take us back to yesterday, but we cannot raise taxes like the 1990s or increase spending like the 2000s. Marco is proposing a 21st century tax plan that would benefit all Americans, especially middle-class families.” Clinton, meanwhile, made no mention of Sanders, who has wooed Democrats by making economic inequality the central plank of his insurgent campaign. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
