VP Mike Pence tells Central America to do more to stop migrants
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the leaders of three Central American nations Thursday that they must do more to stop the flow of migrants who enter the United States illegally. He made the comments to the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where economic struggles and violent crime have pushed many people to try to sneak into the U.S. in hopes of finding better lives. “This exodus must end,” Pence said. “It is a threat to the security to the United States, and just as we respect your borders and your sovereignty, we insist that you respect ours.” He said the Trump administration “will always welcome” immigrants who follow the rules in getting permission to enter the U.S. “In the last year alone, we welcomed more than 1.1 million legal immigrants into our country and our communities, including nearly 50,000 legal immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador last year,” he said. But, Pence added, the U.S. is determined to act strongly against those who don’t. “Tell your people that coming to the United States illegally will only result in a hard journey and a harder life,” Pence said. He spoke after discussing immigration issues with Presidents Jimmy Morales of Guatemala, Salvador Sanchez Ceren of El Salvador and Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras. Referring to the U.S. policies that led to the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents, many of them from Central America, Pence noted President Donald Trump has reversed that approach. Sanchez Ceren of El Salvador said one of his ministers had confirmed that the minors in the shelters had their basic needs covered, but he emphasized that “it’s vital for their psychological health and their emotional health to reunite them immediately with their families.” Earlier in the day, Pence was in Ecuador, whose leader he praised for improving relations with the U.S. He also urged President Lenin Moreno to hold a firm line against neighboring Venezuela, which has been crumbling in economic and political crisis. “The Ecuadorean people have shown remarkable compassion,” Pence said, noting that 350,000 Venezuelans have fled to Ecuador, a country of a little more than 16 million people. “We must all take strong action to restore democracy in Venezuela.” Moreno said a solution to the Venezuela’s crisis is ultimately up to its own people, but added that he and Pence agreed to work together in coordination with the Organization of American States to promote citizen rights and fundamental freedoms throughout Latin America. Winning back trade privileges rejected by Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, were a central part of the talks for Moreno. He was elected last year with Correa’s backing but has since broken with his mentor in adopting a more business- and press-friendly stance that has earned him bipartisan praise in Washington as something of a bridge builder in ideologically polarized Latin America. Pence said relations have improved under Moreno’s leadership and noted their shared fight against international drug traffickers. He credited the new president with reversing a decade of failed policy and rooting out corruption. During their private meeting, Pence raised the issue of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who Ecuador has granted asylum, U.S. officials said. Assange, whose leak of classified U.S. documents infuriated U.S. government officials, has been a sticking point between the two nations. He has been living under asylum inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012. Pence and Moreno did not mention Assange in their public comments. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Jim Zeigler moves state auditors into Ethics Commission offices
In April, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler received written notice from Legislative Council informing him that he was being kicked out of the Alabama State House. Now he’s found a new home for his auditors: the Alabama Ethics Commission. The working offices of the auditors had been in the State House since July 2007, but Zeigler received notice they would have to be out by September 30, 2018, the last day of the 2018 fiscal year. Since receiving the notice, Zeigler has been on the hunt for a new office location. Enter an agreement to sublease unused space at the Alabama Ethics Commission. Finalized Friday, the sublease is for 744 square feet on the 3rd floor of the RSA Union Building was approved by Zeigler, Director of the Ethics Commission Tom Albritton, and Dr. David Bronner CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, which owns the building and holds the primary lease with the Ethics Commission. The Auditor’s office will rent the space for $682 a month in 2018, which will move to $697.50 a month in 2019 and 2020, and up to $713 a month in 2021. “We are a small agency with low costs to Alabama taxpayers. We get a lot done with little space and little staff.” Zeigler said. Job of the State Auditor The State Auditor is tasked with providing accountability to the taxpayers of Alabama by maintaining accurate records of all personal property valued at $500 and above, as well as items deemed sensitive in nature. As well as serving as only check and balance between the Comptroller’s Office and the State Treasury. Zeigler has added to that traditional duty an additional role – a “watchman against government waste and mismanagement.”
Martha Roby: House takes steps to rebuild our military
Over the last year and a half, our unified government has taken big steps to unleash our economy and foster growth here in the United States. Because of this work, our economy is strong today. In fact, since the enactment of our historic tax overhaul six months ago, more than one million new jobs have been created. Because of this work, businesses are growing, Americans are working, and our economy is strong. Now, we must do the work required to ensure that our military is strong, too, especially after the damaging sequestration cuts and funding limitations put into place by the Obama Administration. As a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I have been grateful to have a seat at the table as we’ve worked to properly fund our military through H.R. 6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which recently passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 359-49. I was proud to vote in favor of the legislation, and I spoke on the House floor to urge my colleagues to support it, too. Alabama’s Second District is home to two of our nation’s finest military installations, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, and Fort Rucker down in the Wiregrass. I am especially glad that this funding bill provides the resources to support their critical missions. H.R. 6157 contains an overall amount of $674.6 billion in military funding. This amount covers important funding for Army Aviation programs important to Fort Rucker, including resources for four additional Lakota helicopters, 58 additional Blackhawk helicopters, and 66 additional Apache helicopters. The bill also provides support for other key Alabama programs, including additional funding for a total of three Littoral Combat Ships that are built in Mobile, resources to upgrade the Stryker Vehicle, and strong funding for missile programs, including THAAD, Hellfire, and LRASM. Also importantly, the bill allocates funding for 93 F-35 aircraft, some of which will soon be flown by the 187th Fighter Wing at Dannelly Field in Montgomery. This bill is of critical importance to our national security and the missions in Alabama’s Second District. By passing this legislation, the House has kept our promise to rebuild our military and support our servicemembers. I’d like to share a few more reasons why this bill is so very important. First, it provides a 2.6 percent pay increase to our men and women in uniform – the largest raise they have received in nine years. Our service-members sacrifice their own personal safety to protect us, and they deserve this pay raise. Second, the bill allocates $34.4 billion for the Defense Health Program so troops, their families, and retirees can receive the care they need. This program includes funding for cancer research, psychological health research, and more. Third, it addresses our military readiness problem. It is no secret that our military faced damaging cuts under the Obama Administration that have significantly hindered readiness. This bill makes investments in training, maintenance, and other military readiness programs. Fourth, the bill upgrades our military equipment. The legislation provides more than $145 billion to upgrade and secure military equipment across all branches of the military, including replenishing our Naval fleet. Fifth, this legislation supports counterterrorism efforts. The bill directs funding towards our military’s current operations against terrorist organizations by supporting additional personnel, facilities, and equipment. Our country still faces real and serious threats across the globe, and it is imperative that we enable the Pentagon to not only plan for today, but to be prepared for emerging threats around the world. The bottom line is that the Fiscal Year 2019 Defense funding bill continues our efforts to rebuild our military after several years of harmful cuts and hollowing out. Now, we are making sure the military has the tools and resources it needs to rebuild. One of Congress’ most fundamental constitutional duties is to “provide for the common defense.” This important legislation fulfills that responsibility and ensures that our military not only remains the tip of the spear, but that it grows stronger and well-equipped to face whatever challenges come our way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5f9vY00kpU ••• Martha Roby represents Alabama’s Second Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband Riley and their two children.
GE Appliances to create 255 jobs in Decatur with $115 million expansion
GE Appliances on Friday announced plans to invest $115 million to expand its Decatur, Ala. refrigerator manufacturing plant. The expansion will add 255 new full-time jobs, bringing the plant’s total employment to nearly 1,300. The investment will help GE Appliances increase production to meet increasing demand for its top-mounted freezer refrigerators and represents the company’s latest step toward fulfilling a strategic goal of becoming the leading major appliance business in the U.S. “The expansion being announced today by GE Appliances reflects the company’s deep commitment to its employees at the Decatur facility and to the state,” said Gov. Kay Ivey of the news. “We’re proud that this great company calls Alabama home, and we look forward to supporting the continued growth of a manufacturing location that has a substantial economic impact on the area.” The investment will add approximately 40,000 square feet to the plant, along with new cutting-edge manufacturing equipment that further advances GE Appliances’ plan to transition to a fully interconnected digital factory. This advanced equipment will also provide the Decatur operation with rapid flexibility, enabling it to offer future product innovations while building on a legacy of quality leadership. Overall, the investment will boost production capacity by 25 percent and make the Decatur plant a “refrigerator super site” for GE Appliances. “Our announcement today is great news for our business, for our GE Appliances family in Decatur, and for the State of Alabama,” added Kevin Nolan, President and CEO of GE Appliances. “Our $115 million investment in Decatur is a critical part of our plan to be the leading appliances business in the United States. We are already a significant member of the local Decatur community, and look forward to a continued partnership with Decatur and the entire state of Alabama for many years to come.” Decatur plant GE Appliances’ Decatur plant is already the largest industrial employer in Morgan County. The company conducts approximately $95 million in business with suppliers across Alabama, and the construction of the expanded Decatur facility and increased production is expected to expand this business. Following the investment, the five-year economic impact of the Decatur operation is expected to increase to $2.2 billion, according to GE Appliances. “Today’s expansion announcement is a reflection of the company’s commitment to our Decatur community and a testament to the accomplishments of the GEA-Decatur team,” Decatur Plant Manager Renee Story said. “This investment means we will not only be able to welcome more than 250 new associates and enhance our skill level, but also expand our relationships with local suppliers.” Story continued, “We appreciate support from the State of Alabama, the City of Decatur, the Morgan County Commission, the Morgan Country Economic Development Association, and the Tennessee Valley Authority in helping make this investment possible.” The Decatur operation is the highest-volume GE Appliances refrigerator plant, producing GE and Hotpoint products that rank high in quality and dependability. As a result of this investment, the plant has opportunities for continued growth in the Decatur community for years to come. “GE Appliances’ decision to make a significant reinvestment in its Decatur manufacturing center and expand its workforce are strong indicators of the confidence the company has in its Alabama operation,” said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce. “This expansion project strengthens the long-term partnership we have built with GE Appliances and enhances the competitiveness of the Decatur facility.” The expansion of the Decatur plant comes as GE Appliances recently marked the second anniversary of becoming part of Haier, the world’s largest appliance brand. Since joining Haier in June 2016, GE Appliances has made a series of other major investments at its U.S facilities. “A major employer for over 40 years, GE Appliances is a fixture in Decatur-Morgan County,” added Jeremy Nails, president and CEO of the Morgan County Economic Development Association. “This announcement of new investment and jobs is a reflection of our local workforce, business climate, and economic momentum. We are grateful to GE Appliances for this expansion and look forward to supporting their local operations through this growth.”
Oprah Winfrey-backed ‘Rape of Recy Taylor’ recounts woman’s ordeal
When Oprah Winfrey saluted unheralded #MeToo crusaders at the Golden Globes last January, she chose a rape victim from 1940s Alabama to drive home her point. “Recy Taylor, a name I know, and I think you should know, too,” Winfrey said, sketching the outlines of the African-American woman’s assault by six white Alabama youths and her quest for justice. Taylor’s wrenching story and its connection to female civil rights activists, most notably Rosa Parks, are illuminated in filmmaker Nancy Buirski’s documentary “The Rape of Recy Taylor” (airing 9 p.m. EDT Monday on the Starz channel). Taylor, who died last December at age 97 shortly after the film’s theatrical release, is seen and heard briefly in it. Her words are powerful despite her frailty. “I can’t but tell the truth of what they done to me,” she said, condemning both her attackers and the authorities who weren’t “concerned about what happened to me.” The film mixes orthodox documentary elements — accounts from Taylor’s relatives and other contemporaries, the perspectives of historians — with haunting visual touches and music such as Fannie Lou Hamer’s “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” It blends into somber, unsettling poetry. There are clips from so-called “race films,” vintage movies made by African-American moviemakers, including one in which a distraught woman flees from unseen danger. In a scene from Oscar Micheaux’s “Within Our Gates” (1920), a white man attacks a black woman. The movie excerpts help “communicate very quickly that this didn’t just happen to Recy Taylor” and help broaden one woman’s ordeal to a “much larger canvas” about the peril black women faced, filmmaker Buirski said. In 1944, Taylor, then 24, married and a mother, was walking to her Abbeville, Alabama, home after an evening church service with two friends, an older woman and her 18-year-old son. Local whites out joyriding stopped them and, at gunpoint, demanded Taylor get in their car. They raped her repeatedly and, after forcing money into her hand, released her after she agreed to remain silent. She stumbled home “crying and upset,” recalls her brother, Robert Corbitt. “Those young boys felt like they can do it and get away with it. They really felt like they could. They know nothing was going to happen to them.” But Taylor fought back, recounting the assault to the local sheriff. Her courage put her family at risk — their home was firebombed — and eventually led to two faint-hearted, failed efforts to bring the case to trial in the Jim Crow South. The roots of such inaction run deep. Yale associate professor Crystal N. Feimster, who is part of the documentary, has written that it was a legal impossibility for a female slave to file rape charges against a white man in any Southern state before 1861. Northern black newspapers doggedly covered Taylor’s case as it unfolded, prompting African-American protests and action by the NAACP. The civil rights group dispatched Parks, then the secretary in its Montgomery, Alabama, office, to meet with Taylor — before Parks gained fame as the woman whose refusal to move to the back of a segregated bus sparked a powerful boycott. In a newspaper photo taken at the time, Taylor stares directly at the camera with an expression both stolid and determined. It’s a portrait of a young woman prepared to stand her ground. At one point, the Abbeville sheriff dismissed Taylor as “nothing but a whore” whom he’d arrested before, then admitted she had never been jailed and that she and her family were of good reputation. Filmmaker Buirski, who recounted the groundbreaking interracial marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving in a documentary and was a producer on the big-screen drama “Loving,” learned of Taylor from historian Danielle L. McGuire’s 2010 book, “At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance.” “One of the things that I felt so strongly about in this film (and the ‘Loving’ documentary) is you have people who have the moral courage to stand up, and they change history as a result,” Buirski said. “They don’t have to be activists. Anybody can change history.” There’s a question she’s fielded before, about why a white New Yorker felt compelled to make a film about Taylor, and she has a ready answer. “I do feel that whites and blacks should be telling stories about each other. I think that whites in particular have a responsibility to deal with this information because whites really are the reason for the suffering that a lot of blacks had,” she said. Was she the right person to make the documentary? “I’m the first person to say I don’t know what it’s like to be in a black woman’s skin,” one who would recount Taylor’s life and times differently and maybe better, Buirski said. But, she added, it’s up to African-American filmmakers to make “The Rape of Recy Taylor” the first “in a volley of stories” about her, not the last. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Richard Shelby, Senate colleagues headed to Russia in effort to ‘lessen some tensions’
A group of Republican United States senators headed to Russia Thursday night in an effort to “lessen some tensions” with the country ahead of a possible July meeting between President Donald Trump‘s and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman and Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, is joined by Commerce Chairman and South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Homeland Security Chairman and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, along with Texas U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. The group planned the trip at the urging of Ambassador Jon Huntsman. “I’m sure we’ll have some high-level meetings. … [Russia] at times can be an adversary. But they’re somebody that I think, just like China and others, that we should be talking to. See if there’s any common ground,” Shelby told reporters ahead of the trip. The trip is scheduled to last roughly five days.
Death threat forces Rep. Maxine Waters to cancel Birmingham event
California Democrat, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters stirred up controversy last week when she incited violence, calling on Americans to confront Trump administration officials whenever they are out in public. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them!” Waters instructed. “And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere.” Her remarks garnered the attention of President Donald Trump, who called her “an extraordinarily low IQ person” on Twitter Monday, warning, “Be careful what you wish for Max!” Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018 On Thursday, news surfaced Waters had to cancel an upcoming trip Birmingham due to security concerns. Waters canceled her Friday appearance at the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative (NOBEL) Women’s Annual Legislative Conference. “There was one very serious death threat made against me on Monday from an individual in Texas which is why my planned speaking engagements in Texas and Alabama were cancelled this weekend,” Waters said in a statement. “This is just one in several very serious threats the United States Capitol Police are investigating in which individuals threatened to shoot, lynch, or cause me serious bodily harm.”
For new Supreme Court justice, a host of big issues awaits
Justice Anthony Kennedy‘s successor will have a chance over a likely decades-long career to tackle a host of big issues in the law and have a role in shaping the answers to them. Most court-watchers and interest groups are focused on abortion and whether a more conservative justice may mean more restrictions on abortions get upheld or even whether the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision affirming a woman’s right to abortion might someday be overturned. But Kennedy’s replacement will quickly confront a host of issues, some prominent and others not. Whomever President Donald Trump chooses, the person is expected to move the court to the right. Conservative groups, seeing a court friendlier to their views, might look at the new court and think it’s time to bring challenges to liberal laws currently on the books. And conservative state lawmakers may also attempt to pass legislation testing boundaries they wouldn’t have while Kennedy was on the court. A look at a few issues that a new justice could confront in short order: PARTISAN REDISTRICTING The Supreme Court in the term that ended Wednesday had two cases before it dealing with whether electoral maps can give an unfair advantage to a political party. The justices ducked that question, sending cases from Wisconsin and Maryland back to lower courts for further review. Kennedy had been the justice who left the door open to court challenges to extreme partisan redistricting, but he never found a way to measure it that satisfied him. A case involving North Carolina’s heavily Republican congressional districting map now in a lower court could provide an opportunity for the justices to revisit the issue as soon as next term. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY Another unresolved issue recently before the court is whether a business can cite religious objections in order to refuse service to gay and lesbian people. The court could have tackled that issue in a case argued this term about a Colorado baker who wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Instead, the justices found that a member of the Colorado commission that looked at the case displayed an anti-religious bias against the baker but left for another day the broader question. The justices could have added another case on the issue to the list of cases they’ll begin hearing arguments in this fall, a case that involved a flower shop owner who cited her religious beliefs in declining to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding. For now they’ve sent that case back to a lower court. That same case or another one like it could quickly be in front of the court again. GUN RIGHTS The court has been reluctant to take gun rights cases in recent years, repeatedly turning away challenges to gun restrictions. In 2008 and 2010 the court voted 5-4, with Kennedy in the majority both times, in saying people have a right to have guns in their own homes, striking down handgun ownership bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago. But the court left open how broadly the Second Amendment may protect gun rights in other settings. The court hasn’t taken a major gun rights case since 2010, even though Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch have all signaled interest. DEATH PENALTY A regular but sometimes forgotten part of the Supreme Court’s work involves ruling on last-minute petitions from death row inmates. About two dozen executions were carried out in the United States last year, and they tend to generate a flurry of legal activity. It takes five votes to grant a stay of execution and the court’s conservatives are typically more reluctant to do so than its liberals. Since the court has four reliably conservative votes, if Kennedy’s replacement is more conservative, it may be that much harder for a death row inmate to get a reprieve. Two cases involving death row inmates are on the court’s calendar for the fall. DEFERENCE TO AGENCIES The Supreme Court’s conservatives over the last few years have increasingly questioned older decisions that tell judges they should defer in certain circumstances to the wisdom of government agencies. The basic premise is that Congress writes laws that often aren’t perfectly clear and leaves working out the details to agencies. The Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in a case often called just “Chevron” says that in those situations, courts should rely on the experts at federal agencies to fill in the gaps. That particular case dealt with the Clean Air Act and EPA regulations. Kennedy himself raised concerns about that decision in an opinion a week ago, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch have also done so. A new, conservative justice might quickly be asked to weigh in. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
