Troy City Council President Marcus Paramore announces candidacy for Alabama House District 89
Troy City Council President Marcus Paramore announced his candidacy today to seek the Republican nomination for the District 89 seat in the Alabama legislature, according to a recent press release. Surrounded by a crowd of approximately 70 supporters outside of Troy’s City Hall, Paramore announced he intended to run with a “focus on economic development and the protection of traditional conservative values in Pike and Dale counties.” Promising to run on a campaign centered around family, faith, and hard work, Paramore explained, “I want to work every day to make District 89 a great place to live and to raise children and grandchildren. I am so proud to live here and to have raised my family here. I know that we have so much to offer and that we can continue to grow while keeping our conservative values.” Paramore’s tenure on Troy’s City Council resulted in heavy involvement in various recruiting industries such as Kimber and Rex Lumber and a number of national retailers. Passionate about fostering the expanding labor market in District 89, Paramore is also a staunch advocate against awarding able-bodied employees incentives to not work. Currently, the District 89 seat in the Alabama legislature is held by Rep. Wes Allen (R-Troy). Allen has announced that he will not run for re-election but instead will run for the Office of Alabama Secretary of State. The Republican Primary election will be held on May 24, 2022.
Amazon announces new Alabama warehouse after union defeat
Amazon announced plans for a new warehouse that will bring more than 500 jobs to north Alabama just weeks after workers at another company facility in the state soundly defeated a push for unionization. The company said the 1 million-square-foot (93,000-square-meter) order fulfillment center would be built near a new Mazda Toyota vehicle factory that’s being constructed west of Huntsville in Limestone County. “Amazon employees will pick, pack, and ship bulky or larger-sized customer items such as patio furniture, outdoor equipment, or rugs,” Owen Torres, a company spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday. Amazon already has warehouses near Mobile and in suburban Birmingham, where employees last month voted decisively against forming a union to cut off a drive that labor activists had hoped would lead to similar efforts throughout the company. The union push at Bessemer, located just west of Birmingham, was the biggest in the 26-year history of the online seller and only the second time that an organizing move from within the company had come to a vote. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Alabama town magistrate stabbed in City Hall attack
A man who entered Bayou La Batre City Hall with plans to kill police officers on Tuesday stabbed the town magistrate, who also is the mayor’s wife, news outlets reported. Police Chief Scott Dagg told WALA-TV that a man walked into municipal offices for the coastal city of 2,500 and stabbed magistrate Marcia Barnes, the wife of Mayor Henry Barnes. The woman was taken to a hospital and required stitches to her leg, and the mayor said his wife was the only person injured, WPMI-TV reported. A man was in custody, but authorities didn’t immediately release his name. “His intent was to kill law enforcement. … Attacking the magistrate was one way to get to us,” Dagg said. “He was familiar to us. Over the years, we’ve known him.” The city, a seafood processing hub located south of Mobile on the Gulf Coast, posted on its Facebook page that City Hall was temporarily closed and municipal court was canceled for the day. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
House votes to create panel to probe Jan. 6 insurrection
The House voted Wednesday to create an independent commission on the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sending the legislation to an uncertain future in the Senate as Republicans increasingly line up against the bipartisan investigation and align themselves with former President Donald Trump. Democrats say an independent investigation is crucial to reckoning what happened that day when a violent mob of Trump’s supporters smashed into the Capitol to try and overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. Modeled after the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the legislation would establish an independent, 10-member commission that would make recommendations by the end of the year for securing the Capitol and preventing another insurrection. It passed the House 252-175. But top Republicans in Congress are working to stop it. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday morning that he will oppose the legislation, joining with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who came out against it Tuesday. Both men claimed the bill was partisan, even though membership of the proposed commission would be evenly split between the parties. The January insurrection has become an increasingly fraught topic for Republicans, with a growing number in the party downplaying the severity of the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years. While most Republicans voted against forming the commission, only a few spoke on the floor against it. And a handful of Republicans who backed the commission spoke forcefully. “This is about facts — it’s not partisan politics,” said New York Rep. John Katko, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee who negotiated the legislation with Democrats. He said, “the American people and the Capitol Police deserve answers, and action as soon as possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said that Jan. 6 “is going to haunt this institution for a long, long time” and that a commission is necessary to find the truth about what happened. He recalled that he “heard the shouts, saw the flash-bangs, smelled the gas on that sorry day.” Democrats grew angry as some Republicans suggested the commission was only intended to smear Trump. Several shared their own memories of the insurrection, when rioters brutally beat police, broke in through windows and doors, and sent lawmakers running. Four of the rioters died, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber. A Capitol Police officer collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters, and two officers took their own lives in the days after. “We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol Police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship? What else has to happen in this country?” shouted Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, on the floor just before the vote. He said the GOP opposition is “a slap in the face to every rank and file cop in the United States.” The vote was yet another test of Republican loyalty to Trump, whose grip on the party remains strong despite his election defeat. House Republicans booted Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from their leadership last week for her criticism of Trump’s false claims, installing a Trump loyalist in her place. Cheney, in turn, suggested to ABC News that a commission could subpoena McCarthy because he spoke to Trump during the insurrection. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called McCarthy’s opposition to the commission “cowardice.” She released a February letter from the GOP leader in which he asked for an even split of Democrats and Republican commissioners, equal subpoena power, and no predetermined findings or conclusions. The bipartisan legislation accommodates all three of those requests, she said. “Leader McCarthy won’t take yes for an answer,” she said. In the Senate, McConnell’s announcement dimmed the prospects for passage. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed to force a vote on the bill, charging that Republicans are “caving” to Trump. Schumer said that Republicans are trying to “sabotage the commission” and are “drunk” off Trump’s baseless claim that the election was stolen from him. That false assertion, repeated by the mob as the rioters broke into the Capitol, has been rebuked by numerous courts, bipartisan election officials across the country, and Trump’s own attorney general. Trump released a statement Tuesday night urging Republicans to oppose the commission, calling it a “Democrat trap.” Like in the House, some Senate Republicans have suggested they will support the legislation. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said Tuesday that given the violent attack, “we should understand what mistakes were made and how we could prevent them from happening again.” Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said he doesn’t agree with McConnell that the bill is slanted toward Democrats and “I’m inclined to support it.” Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said that she supports the idea of a commission but that the House bill would need adjustments. Others have pushed their colleagues to oppose the commission. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee, is working on a report with his Democratic colleagues that will include recommendations for security upgrades. He said an independent investigation would take too long and “frankly, I don’t think there are that many gaps to be filled in on what happened on Jan. 6, as it relates to building security.” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, cited concern in the caucus that the investigation could be “weaponized politically” in the 2022 election cycle. “I want our midterm message to be about the kinds of issues that the American people are dealing with,” Thune said. “It’s jobs and wages and the economy, national security, safe streets, strong borders and those types of issues, and not relitigating the 2020 election.” Separately Wednesday, aides to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., circulated a letter they said was from a group of around 40-50 anonymous U.S. Capitol Police officers who had been speaking with the congressman. “It is inconceivable that some of the Members we
