Mo Brooks responds to Donald Trump’s decision to rescind his U.S. Senate endorsement
Congressman Mo Brooks responded to former President Donald Trump rescinding his endorsement of Brooks in Alabama’s U.S. Senate race. In a statement on his campaign website, Brooks stated, “It’s disappointing that, just like in 2017, President Trump lets Mitch McConnell manipulate him again. Every single negative TV ad against our campaign has come from McConnell and his allies. I wish President Trump wouldn’t fall for McConnell’s ploys, but, once again, he has. “I have not changed. I am the only proven America First candidate in this Senate race. I am the only candidate who fought voter fraud and election theft when it counted, between November 3 and January 6. “I repeat what has prompted President Trump’s ire. The only legal way America can prevent 2020’s election debacle is for patriotic Americans to focus on and win the 2022 and 2024 elections so that we have the power to enact laws that give us honest and accurate elections. “President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period. “I’ve told President Trump the truth knowing full well that it might cause President Trump to rescind his endorsement. But I took a sworn oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. I honor my oath. That is the way I am. I break my sworn oath for no man. “I’m still the most conservative candidate in the race. Katie Britt’s campaign is supported and funded by McConnell allies, and she’s still a high taxing, open borders, cheap foreign labor, Chamber of Commerce lobbyist. “There’s only one conservative option in this race, and I am confident that the people of Alabama will see that on Election Day,” Brooks concluded.
Jim Zeigler proposes “Watchman Program” for elections
Secretary of State candidate Jim Zeigler has proposed a plan to better prevent election irregularities using an “almost ignored” position in state elections: volunteer poll watchers. He calls his plan to upgrade poll watchers “the Watchman program.” Zeigler, the current State Auditor, released the proposal at a speech to the Republican Women of Pike County in Troy on Wednesday. The plan would recruit volunteer poll watchers for each polling place in the state and train those poll watchers for irregularities to watch for. Zeigler is running in the May 24 Republican primary for the open seat of Secretary of State. In a speech at the Troy County Club, Zeigler explained that volunteer poll watchers, unlike paid poll watchers, are underutilized and almost ignored. Zeiger stated, “Poll Watchers are granted strong abilities to spot irregularities, to intervene, and to report problems. Properly trained poll watchers can be an added preventive against election fraud.” Zeigler went on to explain that the Secretary of State leader must be a watchman again attempts to manipulate elections. “As your State Auditor, I served as your watchman against government waste, mismanagement, and corruption. As your Secretary of State, I can serve as your watchman for election integrity,” Zeigler stated. Under what Zeigler calls “The Watchman Program,” the Secretary of State would conduct an information and recruitment campaign to the public, to organizations, to candidates, and to the faith community, with a long-range goal to get a poll watcher in every polling place in all 67 counties. Second, the Secretary of State would set up free training sessions for the poll watchers, with in-person training and online training. “We will show the poll watchers what to do. What they can and cannot do. What election shenanigans to be on the lookout for. What steps to take if they see questionable activity,” Zeigler stated. “Trained and vigilant poll watchers will have a chilling effect on those who would manipulate the polling places.”
Donald Trump rescinds Mo Brooks endorsement in Alabama U.S. Senate race
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama’s U.S. Senate race in a major blow to the congressman’s campaign. In a statement, Trump cited Brooks’ performance in the race, poor campaign staffing, and what Trump perceived as a softening of Brooks’ stance on the former president’s false 2020 election fraud claims. Trump said he will be making another endorsement announcement in the “near future.” “Very sad but, since he decided to go in another direction, so have I, and I am hereby withdrawing my Endorsement of Mo Brooks for the Senate,” Trump said in a statement. “I don’t think the great people of Alabama will disagree with me.” Trump has been frustrated for months by Brooks’ performance as he has failed to gain traction in the race. By dropping the endorsement, the former president is trying to stave off the embarrassment of backing a losing candidate in a high-profile race. Trump, who often brags about his endorsement record, takes his tally seriously, seeing it as a reflection of his power as he mulls another presidential run. It’s not the only race in which Trump’s pick has been struggling. The candidate he originally endorsed in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, Sean Parnell, dropped out amid allegations of abuse from his ex-wife. In North Carolina, his endorsed candidate for an open Senate seat, Rep. Ted Budd, has failed to make a splash. And in Georgia, his pick for governor, David Perdue, is trailing incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, one of his top 2022 targets. Trump has since become more cautious and held back endorsements in several high-profile races, including contests in Ohio, Missouri, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Trump had backed Brooks since last April, more than a year ahead of the upcoming May 24 primary, rewarding the conservative firebrand and ally who whipped up a crowd of Trump supporters at the January 6, 2021, rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection. Brooks has since found himself in a primary battle with two formidable opponents: Katie Britt, the former head of a state business group, and Mike Durant, a businessman best known as the helicopter pilot shot down and held prisoner in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident. The Alabama Senate race will decide who replaces retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, a fellow Republican. Britt previously served as Shelby’s chief of staff. Trump, in his Wednesday statement, cited remarks Brooks had made during an August rally with Trump in Alabama that briefly resulted in jeers from the crowd. Brooks told the crowd it was time to move on from the 2020 presidential race and focus on upcoming elections. The remark resulted in some rallygoers briefly booing him. “When I heard his statement, I said, ‘Mo, you just blew the Election, and there’s nothing you can do about it,’” Trump said Wednesday. Trump told the Washington Examiner last week that he was disappointed in Brooks’ performance and suggested he was open to backing another candidate. “It’s a very tight race between the three of them right now, and I’m not particularly happy,” he said. Trump invited Britt and her husband, Wesley Britt, a former lineman for the New England Patriots, to visit with him at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate last month, according to a person who was familiar with the visit but not authorized to speak about it publicly. Brooks has leaned heavily on the Trump connection. His campaign signs refer to him as “MAGA Mo” in reference to the former president’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. He appeared with a life-size poster of Trump at one recent campaign stop. Brooks had tried to salvage the endorsement by pledging not to back Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader if he wins the seat. Trump has fumed at McConnell and repeatedly called for his replacement since McConnell criticized the then-president’s conduct on January 6. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Steve Flowers: Benefactor or idealogue
Over the years, I have discussed my observations and concepts of the two different roles or routes taken by a U.S. Senator or Congressman during their tenure in Washington. One clearly chooses one of two postures in their representation of you in Washington. Our delegates to D.C. are either benefactors or idealogues. The role of benefactor is much better for any state, especially Alabama. This public figure is not only a benefactor but also a facilitator and a statesman. In other words, this person is interested and diligent in bringing home federal dollars to the Heart of Dixie. The perfect example of a benefactor, facilitator, and statesman senator is our current U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby. No senator in Alabama history has brought home more federal dollars to our state than Richard Shelby. He has helped Alabama more during his 36-years in the senate than any other senator. The second role is idealogue. This politician sees his role as a zealot on issues. The idealogue is more interested in advocating for popular social and non-economic issues with no regard for the state’s financial interests. Beginning in the 1930s and extending for 30 years through the 1960s, we had two of the greatest U.S. Senators in history. Lister Hill and John Sparkman were giants in Washington and were erudite diplomats for our state. They can aptly be described as benefactors, facilitators, and statesmen for Alabama. During the 1970s and 1980s, we had two well-respected and effective senators in Judge Howell Heflin and Richard Shelby. Upon the arrival of Jeff Sessions in 1996, as the state’s first true blue Republican, we witnessed the portrayal of our first true ideologue. Sessions was the most right-wing, reactionary Republican in the U.S. Senate. However, he was not a demagogue; he was a true believer and one of the most honest and gentlemanly men I have ever observed in the public arena. He was also well qualified and prepared to be a U.S. Senator, having been a U.S. Attorney and Attorney General of Alabama. Alabama cannot afford to have the ultimate demagogic idealogue, Mo Brooks, follow Richard Shelby. It would literally be like exchanging the most effective U.S. Senator in Alabama history with the least effective Senator in Alabama history. We would go from having the number one, most powerful senator to the last place, number 100th effectiveness for their state in Washington. It would be worse than not having a senator because the image that Mo Brooks portrays for Alabama is so harmful that we would be better off not to have a second senator, and for a state that depends on federal dollars, that would not be a good position for Alabama. A large portion of Alabama’s federal largesse dollars goes to the Huntsville area. Mo Brooks has been the congressman from this area for ten years. He has done nothing towards federal and economic growth in the Huntsville-Tennessee Valley area. Brooks has been an obstacle. He prefers being a bomb-thrower to being an effective representative. The entire growth and prosperity of the Huntsville area can be attributed to Senator Richard Shelby with local assistance from Mayor Tommy Battle. Brooks’s laissez-faire attitude towards government and his allegiance and loyalty to the right-wing clandestine Club for Growth is toxic for Alabama and our dependence on defense dollars. Brooks is an irrelevant, right-wing gadfly whom people just laugh at like a crazy uncle they keep locked in a closet. He has become a national poster boy for crazy theatrics. The image he gives to Alabama hurts us immensely in Washington. He is a pariah for Alabama’s future. Brooks would be a deterrent for Alabama procuring additional or even keeping our current federal defense dollars in Alabama. If Mo Brooks is elected as our senator to replace Richard Shelby, you can expect Redstone Arsenal’s growth to stop, and you can kiss the space command headquarters coming to Alabama goodbye. Furthermore, those of you who live in the Montgomery River Region area and those of you who live in the Wiregrass and have depended on Maxwell-Gunter and Ft. Rucker as your economic engines for generations better grab hold of your wallet. With Mo Brooks as the Senator from Alabama, you may very well see these mega-military economic meccas moved to California. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at: www.steveflowers.us.
Alabama virus hospitalizations lowest since pandemic start
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Alabama has dropped to the lowest point since the earliest days of the pandemic, state statistics show. Just 156 people statewide were being treated for the illness caused by the new coronavirus on Sunday, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. That was the least since late March 2020, when the same number were hospitalized as COVID-19 was just beginning to spread across the state. In east Alabama, Regional Medical Center in Alabama hasn’t seen any new COVID-19 cases in more than a week. Dr. Raul Magadia, an infectious disease specialist, told WBRC-TV it was the first time in more than a year the hospital had gone so long without new patients sickened by the virus. “Wednesday last week was our last patient. We discharged and we released our last patient in the COVID ward,” he said. Nearly 3,000 people were hospitalized statewide with COVID-19 in late January at the height of the latest wave, which health officials said was linked to the highly contagious omicron variant. Experts are hopeful that subsequent waves won’t be as bad because so many people have been vaccinated or gained immunity by contracting the illness. About 19,100 people have died of COVID-19 in the state, giving Alabama the nation’s third-highest death rate from the illness at 391 fatalities for every 100,000 residents. Over the last two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has decreased by 720, a decline of about 71%. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Joe Biden to announce new Russia sanctions while in Brussels
President Joe Biden plans to announce new sanctions against Russia on Thursday while in Brussels for meetings with NATO and European allies, according to a top national security aide. Biden, who will take part in a special meeting of NATO and address the European Council summit, is also expected to underscore efforts to enforce the avalanche of existing sanctions already announced by the U.S. and allies. “He will join our partners in imposing further sanctions on Russia and tightening the existing sanctions to crack down on evasion and to ensure robust enforcement,” said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who declined to further preview new sanctions the president will announce. Biden is traveling to Brussels and Poland — which has received more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled since the February 24 invasion — looking to press for continued unity among Western allies as Russia presses on with its brutal invasion of Ukraine. In Poland, Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, who has requested further U.S. aid and a stepped-up military presence on NATO’s eastern flank as the war grinds on. The U.S. has already more than doubled its regular troop presence of more than 4,000 U.S. troops. Currently, there are about 10,000 U.S. troops in Poland. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania have also called for a greater NATO or U.S. military presence in recent weeks. Sullivan suggested that could be coming soon as Biden plans to have talks “on longer-term adjustments to NATO force posture on the eastern flank.” “We feel that it is the right place for him to go to be able to see troops, to be able to see humanitarian experts, and to be able to meet with a frontline and very vulnerable ally,” Sullivan said of Biden’s visit to Poland. Talks on troop adjustments are already underway. Last week, at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his counterparts weighed what defenses to set up on the organization’s eastern flank, from Estonia in the north through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland down to Bulgaria and Romania on the Black Sea. The aim is to deter President Vladimir Putin from ordering an invasion of any of the 30 allies; not just for the duration of this war but for the next 5-10 years. Before launching it, Putin had demanded that NATO stop expanding and withdraw its forces from the east. The opposite is happening. In just the past two months, the U.S. presence in Europe has jumped from about 80,000 troops to about 100,000, which is nearly as many as were there in 1997 when the United States and its NATO allies began an expansion of the alliance that Putin says threatens Russia and must be reversed. By comparison, in 1991, the year the Soviet Union dissolved, the United States had 305,000 troops in Europe, including 224,000 in Germany alone, according to Pentagon records. The number then dropped steadily, reaching 101,000 in 2005 and about 64,000 as recently as 2020. Biden and NATO have said repeatedly that while the U.S. and NATO will provide weapons and other defensive support to non-NATO member Ukraine, they are determined to avoid any escalation on behalf of Kyiv that risks a broader war with Russia. Polish leaders have called for a Western peacekeeping mission to intervene in Ukraine, a step that the U.S. and other allies worry could lead to a broadening of the war. Sullivan added that Biden will also “announce joint action on enhancing European energy security and reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
3 Gulf Coast states get $1.9B in HUD disaster grants
Three Gulf Coast states are getting $1.9 billion in federal grants to help recover from hurricanes and floods over the past two years and become more resilient to climate change, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said Tuesday. Grants totaling $1.7 billion to Louisiana, $189.5 million to Alabama, and $16.6 million to Mississippi are among $3 billion nationwide aimed at both disaster recovery and building “long-term, inclusive resilience to the impacts of climate change,” HUD said in a news release. In addition to the state grants, the cities of Lake Charles and Baton Rouge are getting more than $15 million for recovery from last spring’s floods, the agency said. “These disaster recovery funds will strengthen recovery efforts and improve long-term, inclusive resilience to future disasters and climate impacts,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said. “Communities will have greater resources and focus to ensure equitable outcomes for underserved households that too often bear the brunt of climate-related disasters.” The block grants announced Tuesday completed $5 billion in grants authorized by Congress in 2021. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he was grateful for the money. “However, the need is much greater, which everyone we have spoken with in Washington acknowledges. We will continue working to secure that additional funding,” Edwards said. Alabama’s grant will aid recovery from Hurricane Sally in September 2020 and Hurricane Zeta the following month and help to prevent future damage. Mississippi is getting $8.2 million for Zeta and $8.4 million for 2021′s Hurricane Ida. Louisiana is receiving $1.27 billion for recovery from Hurricane Ida and from flooding that occurred from May 17 to 21, 2021, and $450 million to continue recovery from Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020. Lake Charles is getting nearly $10.8 million to help it recover from the May 2021 floods, with $4.6 million for Baton Rouge. Including $600 million allocated last year, Louisiana has now received about $1 billion in HUD grants for recovery from Laura and Delta, which were among three hurricanes and two tropical storms to make landfall in the state in 2020 — a state record. Ida was one of two hurricanes to do so in 2021. Edwards noted that Louisiana also is getting $40 million out of $60 million announced earlier this week to help Hurricane Ida survivors in four states. New Jersey is getting $10 million and Mississippi and Pennsylvania $5 million each. The aim is to get flood mitigation grants out quickly to residents with either substantially damaged structures or repetitively flooded properties insured under the National Flood Insurance Program. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
