Mo Brooks cosponsors Tommy Tuberville’s immigration legislation
Rep. Mo Brooks announced this week that he has cosponsored the companion bill to legislation first introduced by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Empowering Law Enforcement Act, which would grant local and state police more authority to enforce U.S. immigration law, Yellowhammer News reported. The legislation seeks to address the nation’s southern border crisis as illegal border crossings hit record numbers this year. Critics blame the Biden administration’s reversal of most of the immigration policies from the Trump administration. Biden recently ended border wall construction and ended the Trump administration’s Remain-in-Mexico policy. Known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), the policy kept migrants in Mexico until their hearings were processed. According to a statement released by Tuberville in May, the Act will “grant state and local law enforcement inherent immigration enforcement authority to investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, detain or transfer a migrant that has entered the U.S. illegally.” The legislation would also provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary flexibility on how long someone may be detained, extending the 180-day period. “If the Biden Administration is insistent on taking away ICE’s ability to enforce our immigration laws, then we should make sure our state and local law enforcement has the authority to respond to the influx of illegal migrants in our communities,” stated Tuberville. “The Biden Administration has failed our law enforcement at the expense of American communities, and this bill will remedy that moving forward.” Brooks commented to Yellowhammer News, “Joe Biden and the Socialist Democrats have surrendered America’s southern border. We’ve all seen the horrifying scenes of illegal aliens, many of whom are COVID-19 positive, streaming into America unabated by the millions. Senator Tuberville’s Empowering Law Enforcement Act is an important measure in the fight to secure the southern border and fully enforce America’s immigration laws by giving states and local law enforcement critical resources and authority to enforce federal immigration law. This is especially important as the Biden administration continues to hamstring Customs and Border Patrol operations in order to appease the far left.”
Data used for drawing districts to be released next week
After a delay of more than four months caused by the pandemic, data from the 2020 census used for drawing congressional and legislative districts will be released next week, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. The bureau will publicize the data next Thursday, Aug. 12, four days before it had promised in a court agreement with the state of Ohio. The information was supposed to be released at the end of March but was pushed back to August to give bureau statisticians more time to crunch the numbers, which came in late because of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The postponement sent states scrambling to change their redistricting deadlines. Alabama and Ohio sued the Census Bureau in an effort to get the redistricting data released sooner. As part of a settlement agreement with Ohio, the Census Bureau promised to release the redistricting data no later than Aug. 16 — a date it had previously picked for releasing the numbers in an older format. The data will be released in a newer format by the end of September. The redistricting numbers will show where white, Asian, Black, and Hispanic communities grew over the past decade. It also will show which areas have gotten older and the number of people living in dorms and nursing homes. The data will cover geographies as small as neighborhoods and as large as states. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Lindsey Graham says he’s told Donald Trump to ‘speak up’ on COVID vaccines
As he recovers from a breakthrough infection of the coronavirus, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday that he has urged former President Donald Trump to press his supporters to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which the South Carolina Republican called “the antidote to the virus that’s wreaking havoc on our hospitals.” “I’ve urged him to be aggressive and say, ‘Take the vaccine,’” Graham said in an extensive interview with The Associated Press, his first since disclosing this week that he had tested positive for the virus, months after being vaccinated. On Monday, Graham said he had tested positive days after gathering with a handful of Senate colleagues on Sen. Joe Manchin’s houseboat. That same night, Saturday, Graham said he began experiencing flu-like symptoms. Saying he felt “achy and kind of yucky” through the weekend, Graham said Thursday that his symptoms had been steadily improving, although Monday and Tuesday were “pretty tough days.” He said he believed his symptoms would have been much worse had he not been vaccinated. “It went from sort of a mild sinus infection until just a full-blown, feeling like crap,” Graham told AP. Graham declined to talk about the Manchin event on Thursday, except to say that “everybody there was vaccinated.” Long a proponent of vaccination, Graham received his shots in December. Asked Thursday if President Joe Biden planned to highlight pro-vaccine comments from Republicans like Graham, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said vaccination “is not political to us” but added, “We think it’s great that he’s out there talking about the impact of the vaccine.” Graham is a longtime ally of Trump, who received the vaccine earlier this year. This week, former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times that he wished that Trump had gotten the shot publicly so that his supporters could “see how much trust and confidence he has” in the vaccines. In March, Trump said on Fox News that he would recommend vaccination to “a lot of people that don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me.” But last month, at a rally in Phoenix, Trump told supporters that he felt some people were not taking the vaccine because they “don’t trust” President Joe Biden and stressed people’s “freedoms 100 percent” to do what they felt best. On Thursday, Graham said he had just gotten off the phone with Trump, who had been checking on him every day during his illness. He applauded Trump’s work to develop the vaccine and said he saw vaccinations as necessary for the country to regain its footing. “He’s very proud of that accomplishment,” Graham said. “From a conservative person’s point of view, we should do all we can as a nation to get our economy back up and running and to protect our way of life.” Recognizing that taking the vaccine might be a “sacrifice” for some, Graham said the task paled in comparison with others that have been required of Americans in the past. “No one’s being asked to go off to fight radical Islam or fight a foreign enemy. We’re being asked to make responsible medical decisions,” Graham said. “Take the vaccine.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Mo Brooks seeks immunity in Capitol violence lawsuit
Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks is asking a federal judge to grant him immunity from a lawsuit accusing him of helping to incite violence at the U.S. Capitol, arguing he was performing his job duties when he spoke at a rally on Jan. 6. In a Wednesday court filing, Brooks argued his speech was about the upcoming congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election results and thus related to his job as a congressman. “Brooks’ Ellipse Speech quite clearly related to, and was in the context of, votes in Congress later on January 6, 2021, concerning whether Congress should accept or reject state electoral college vote submittals,” Brooks wrote. The court filing was a rebuttal to the Department of Justice’s view that the event was a campaign event on behalf of then-President Donald Trump. Brooks, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, has come under fire for telling the pro-Trump crowd, “today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” Brooks has maintained his words were intended to fire up the crowd for the next election cycle and were not advocating violence. The congressman, who wore a Fire Pelosi hat in part of the speech, wrote Wednesday that the speech wasn’t advocating for any political party or candidate. Brooks is representing himself in a civil lawsuit filed by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California that accuses Trump and Brooks of helping to incite the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Jan. 6 insurrection, an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s win, came after Trump held a rally in Washington where he urged his followers to “fight like hell.” Brooks began the court filing with a series of statements about himself, including telling the court that he has been married for 45 years, never taken illegal drugs, and doesn’t drink alcohol. Brooks argued that he was acting within the scope of his office when he spoke at a rally on January 6 and thus was due the legal protections afforded federal employees and members of Congress who are facing civil lawsuits over their jobs. The Justice Department earlier urged a judge to deny the congressman’s request for immunity as a federal employee. The Justice Department said the event was campaign-relate,d and it would not certify that Brooks was acting in his official capacity. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Nick Saban: Alabama will be “very cautious” in COVID-19 protocols
Alabama coach Nick Saban isn’t taking any chances with COVID-19 with the season approaching. Saban says the team will use the 2020 safety protocols for “the next six weeks or so” even though the vast majority of his players are fully vaccinated. “We’re still going to be very cautious indoors and in meetings and so forth on trying not to have an issue with the COVID,” Saban said Thursday ahead of the defending national champions’ first preseason practice. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to have full capacity in the stadium. I’m hopeful that more and more people will get vaccinated so they’ll have the opportunity to do that. But that’s everybody’s personal choice.” Saban spoke to reporters at a ceremony where the city renamed a street after his charity, Nick’s Kids. Alabama opens the season on Septempber 4 against Miami in Atlanta. Saban said at Southeastern Conference media days last month that some 90% of his players are fully vaccinated. Alabama, meanwhile, remains the least vaccinated state in the nation with some 35% of Alabamians fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
