Katie Britt’s SGA presidential past brought into question
In recent months, Katie Britt’s past leadership role in the University of Alabama Student Government Association has come into question as the hard-fought Senate election draws to a close. A recent report from 1819 News brings about the question: Should a U.S. Senate candidate or any other candidate seeking higher office have to answer for their past student government record? The SGA has served as a starting point for many of Alabama’s leaders, including Jim Zeigler, John Merrill, and Don Siegelman. Britt served as Alabama’s SGA president during the 2003-2004 academic school year. In October 2003, during Britt’s tenure, the SGA Senate passed a resolution urging the University’s Russell Student Health Center to offer the so-called morning-after pill. It was passed unanimously. However, it was later met with pushback from some students. Then student Joshua Taylor commented in an article from the school newspaper, the Crimson White, “I do not believe the University of Alabama as an educational institution should be distributing the morning after pill. A public-funded institution does not have the ability to decide where life begins.” The controversy with Britt’s participation in this issue stems from the question of whether Britt had veto powers and could have attempted a veto of the SGA Senate’s resolution calling on the University’s health center to offer the morning-after pill but chose not to. According to the report, two weeks after the morning-after pill unanimous resolution, she used that power to veto an SGA Senate parking resolution calling for a one-ticket limit per 24-hour period. Opponents quickly questioned her ability to veto the resolution. In February 2004, while Britt was still SGA president, the Crimson White investigated the veto question, which stemmed from her earlier veto of the SGA Senate’s parking resolution. The question remained unanswered for years until the SGA Constitution finally stated that resolutions were not subject to presidential vetos. Britt responded to questions about her time in the SGA, dismissing the resolution as something “she had no control of.” “As a Christian, conservative wife and mother, I am proud to be 100% pro-life. Both my faith and the science tell me that life begins at conception, and I’ll fight tirelessly to protect life in the Senate,” Britt said in a statement to 1819 News. “Over 63 million innocent unborn babies have been murdered in America since the disastrous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, and my family and I are praying that the Supreme Court finally overturns Roe this year and allows states like Alabama to defend life. “As far as my time in college goes 20 years ago, I will admit to learning and singing every single word of the Auburn fight song. And, like Justice Kavanaugh, I might have even had the opportunity to enjoy a beer or two along the way — but only after I turned 21,” Britt continued. “I am sure there are also a laundry list of things that happened on campus while I was SGA president that I had no control of. At the end of the day, I’m proud to say I was an active leader in our College Republicans chapter back then. I was raised in a Christian, conservative household in Enterprise, Alabama, and that’s how my husband and I are raising our two children. If this is how low my opponents are stooping and how far they’re stretching, I must be doing something right.”
Former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard will not have radio station licenses revoked
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has declined to revoke broadcast licenses held by former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. The ruling stated that the commission’s Enforcement Bureau had not proven an intent to deceive on Hubbard’s part or that the convictions disqualified him from holding the licenses. In 2016 a jury convicted Hubbard of 12 counts of violating the state ethics law, but six were overturned on appeal. Prosecutors accused Hubbard of leveraging his public office to obtain clients and investments for his businesses. His defense lawyers maintained the transactions were all legal. He had remained free while appealing and reported to jail in September 2020. In September 2021, Hubbard filed a request for early release after serving one year of a 28-month sentence, apologizing for his ethics conviction and stating he had hurt the state and his family due to his actions. “My conviction has severely damaged and embarrassed me and my family, friends, former constituents, community, church, the legislature, and the state of Alabama. For this, I am severely sorry and respectfully ask forgiveness from everyone affected,” Hubbard wrote. Hubbard founded the Auburn Network in 1994 and is the sole stockholder. The Auburn Network holds licenses for WANI, an AM station in Opelika, and WGZZ, an FM station in Waverly in Lee and Chambers counties. The network also holds licenses for three FM stations that rebroadcast WGZZ and a construction permit for WHBD-LD in Auburn, a low-power television station. The Enforcement Bureau argued that Hubbard used the Auburn Network to hide his consulting work from the Alabama Ethics Commission. Judge Jane Hinckley Halprin disagreed, stating, “It is difficult to say that Mr. Hubbard has made remedial efforts or that he has been ‘rehabilitated’ given the progress of the criminal case and the fact that he is currently incarcerated. On the other hand, while the stations’ management technically participated in the felonies because Mr. Hubbard is the sole shareholder of licensee Auburn Network, there is no evidence that the stations themselves were involved.” In the 21-page ruling, Halprin wrote that the convictions showed Hubbard “betrayed the trust of the public he was elected to serve.” However, she also stated that the Enforcement Bureau had not shown that Hubbard’s convictions meant he would act “dishonestly” with the FCC. “The misdeeds of a public servant may indeed be relevant in gauging that person’s ability to serve the public interest as an FCC licensee, but in this particular case and under these particular circumstances, the evidence presented does not satisfy the burden of proof,” Halprin wrote. Last December, Hubbard requested an evidentiary hearing on the letter of apology. However, Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker has not ruled on the motion. The earliest Hubbard can be released is January 8, 2023.
Confirmed: Ed Packard personnel files show series of disciplinary actions
Ed Packard is currently running to be Alabama’s next Secretary of State and has worked for over 20 years in the SOS office. He is running on his record of voter integrity and security. However, documents uncovered recently show that Packard was demoted by Secretary of State John Merrill in 2017 because of a costly mistake with ballot reprints. Packard cost taxpayers almost $500,000 in 3,000,000 ballot reprints. In a recently released document called “Ed Packard’s Demotion”, the state personnel office upholds his demotion and notes that Packard had four written reprimands in his personnel file. One was for failing to perform his job properly when he failed to prepare the ballots for mailing. Another was for “disrupting the work environment”. Packard also received a reprimand for missing a statuary deadline to certify a local election and for failing to make the “required number of site visits in accordance with a settlement agreement.” Here is the document. We removed the cover pages that were provided. Ed Packard’s Demotion In 2017, Chief of Staff David Brewer recommended Packard be demoted because of his “failure to manage his staff” and for his poor judgment concerning incorrect ballots that were sent for certification and for printing incorrect ballots. One was for “failing to perform his job properly when he did not prepare the ballots for mailing.” The email that was released to the press emphasizes the seriousness of these reprimands but also stated that these are merely the tip of the iceberg. According to the second document, titled “Ed Packard’s Dismissal,” Packard used his announcement of Secretary of State to help cover up credible allegations of sexual harassment that were going to scheduled for the same day. In December 2021, Packard was scheduled for a pre-dismissal hearing for allegations of sharing pornography on a cell phone, along with other allegations. Packard has stated publicly that he resigned from the SOS office on December 28th, 2021 at 5 pm in order to pursue running for Secretary of State. However, he was actually scheduled for a pre-dismissal hearing due to credible allegations of sexual harassment inside the Secretary of State’s office at 1 pm that same day. Secretary of State John Merrill, as well as other staff members, appear to confirm the allegations are real. Ed Packard’s Dismissal The email with these documents were sent to Party Chairman John Wahl. Additionally, the email alluded to the “Montgomery Swamp” and how more people currently in and running for office have secrets that are yet to be exposed.
Gasoline prices set record Tuesday as Joe Biden set to release plan on inflation
Gasoline prices set a record Tuesday ahead of President Joe Biden’s planned announcement to address rising inflation costs. Short of prioritizing and expanding domestic production, critics argue, any plan he offers won’t reduce gas prices, which are only expected to rise further over the summer. According to AAA, the cost at the pump for both regular gasoline and diesel fuel reached their highest recorded average price Tuesday morning. The national average of a regular gallon of gasoline was $4.374, up five cents from Monday, and $5.55 for diesel, up one cent from Monday. The nation’s 10 largest weekly increases, AAA reports, were in Michigan (+26 cents), New Jersey (+25 cents), Connecticut (+19 cents), Kentucky (+19 cents), Indiana (+19 cents), Rhode Island (+19 cents), Illinois (+18 cents), Washington, D.C. (+18 cents), Alabama (+18 cents) and Tennessee (+18 cents). The nation’s 10 most expensive markets continue to be in California ($5.82), Hawaii ($5.28), and Nevada ($5.11), followed by Washington ($4.83), Oregon ($4.81), Alaska ($4.73), Washington, D.C. ($4.69), Arizona ($4.66), Illinois ($4.59) and New York ($4.51). For the week ending March 14, weekly retail average gasoline prices across all grades was $4.41 a gallon, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported, the highest on record. As of Tuesday morning, the domestic benchmark, WTI Crude, was $102.74 a barrel and the international benchmark, Brent Crude, was $105.44 a barrel. Gas prices also are reaching record highs at a time of the year when they traditionally go up because refiners switch to producing more expensive summer blends. As travel picks up over the summer and demand for gasoline increases, gas prices are only expected to go up even further. Gas prices have been rising since Biden first came into office and began implementing a range of restrictions on domestic production. Within months of doing so, well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. gas prices reached a seven-year high. Now, “Americans are waking up to the highest gas prices ever as President Biden’s energy failures continue to mount,” energy nonprofit Power The Future said in a statement. “The latest skyrocketing gas prices come less than two months from the previous record for regular gasoline while diesel has set a new record on a regular basis since last week.” “There is no doubt the White House is hoping that Americans simply become numb to yet another disastrous result of their energy failures, but the pain at the pump is too real and everyone intrinsically understands that Joe Biden is to blame,” the organization’s founder and executive director, Daniel Turner, said. “President Biden is now a two-time record holder for the highest gas prices, the most oil drained from the strategic reserve, and re-injecting the term ‘inflation’ back into the national lexicon for the first time since the 1970s. This type of failure doesn’t happen by accident,” he added. “The President’s green ideology is a man-made disaster and we’re all paying the price.” As gas and other prices keep climbing, Biden’s remained steadfast in restricting domestic production, instead turning to OPEC+ countries, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, to produce more oil, while also releasing record amounts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced it was investing $3.1 billion to bolster electric vehicle production with a goal of electric vehicles making up half of all vehicle sales in the U.S. by 2030. By the end of 2021, electric vehicle sales accounted for 3.4% of car sales, according to the EIA. As of March, more than 2.5 million plug-in electric vehicles had been sold nationwide, according to the DOE. Critics say if Biden hadn’t canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, gas prices would be lower, and the pipeline would have strengthened U.S. GDP by an estimated more than $3 billion, carried roughly 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to the U.S., and directly and indirectly provided up to 26,000 jobs. Sixteen attorneys general called on Biden to reinstate the pipeline, prioritize domestic energy production, and “reverse the damage” he’s done. Last month, they wrote the president saying, “It’s never too late to admit your mistakes.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Donald Trump’s clout factors into U.S. House races in West Virginia, Nebraska
Roads, bridges, and former President Donald Trump are on West Virginia and Nebraska voters’ minds as they choose congressional candidates in Tuesday’s Republican primary elections. Two incumbent GOP congressmen who have taken dramatically different approaches to their time in office are facing off in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the most-watched U.S. House primaries on the day’s ballot. Reps. David McKinley and Trump-backed Alex Mooney were pitted against each other after West Virginia lost a congressional seat based on the results of the 2020 U.S. census. Throughout West Virginia on Tuesday, voters were heading to polling places at schools, churches, and public libraries. Susan Smith, a small business owner in Valley Grove, West Virginia, voted for Mooney at a local elementary school Tuesday morning. She lives in McKinley’s former district and said she always voted for him in the past. But not in this election. “When Mr. McKinley started voting with the Democrats and the current administration, that’s when things changed,” said Smith, who cited McKinley’s vote for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill and the January 6 commission. “I’m sorry to be losing a congressman, but we cannot have a Republican congressman voting with the Democrats. West Virginia did not need the money from this un-infrastructure bill.” Lowell Moore, a retired highways worker and county commissioner in rural Tucker County, said the choice was clear to support McKinley. He said he’s already seeing the benefit of federal infrastructure money in work being done to complete Corridor H, the last remaining section of the Appalachian Development Highway System in West Virginia. Moore said completing Corridor H will cut the response time for emergency services in half in Tucker County, which does not have a hospital and where first responders now have to travel on winding mountain roads. “The people he represents needed this so bad,” Moore said. “I’m a Republican, and I commend him for reaching across the aisle. It shouldn’t be about making the political decision — it should be about making the right decision.” West Virginia’s election is the first of five primaries in which two incumbent U.S. House members will face off. It will be followed by similar contests in Georgia and Michigan and in two Illinois districts. The primary comes on the heels of a victory by Trump-endorsed conservative JD Vance, author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” who defeated six other candidates to win the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate last week. The West Virginia contest will once again test the former president’s clout when his own name isn’t on the ballot. Nebraska voters will nominate candidates on Tuesday to fill the seat abandoned by U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who resigned from office and ended his reelection bid after he was convicted of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign contribution. Fortenberry’s name will still appear on the ballot for the 1st Congressional District because he withdrew after a deadline to certify the ballot, but Sen. Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, appears to have the advantage over five other Republican candidates. Voters will also pick nominees for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area. Three-term Republican Rep. Don Bacon faces a long-shot challenge from Steve Kuehl, an Omaha consultant who got a shoutout from Trump when the former president visited earlier this month. Trump blasted Bacon as a “bad guy” during a recent rally in the state and had criticized him previously for his support of a federal infrastructure bill that most GOP lawmakers opposed. Bacon also has been mildly critical of Trump in the past, saying the former president bore some responsibility for the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump stopped far short of officially endorsing Kuehl, however, saying: “I think Steve will do well. Good luck, Steve, whoever the hell you are.” Democrats in Nebraska will nominate either state Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha or Alisha Shelton, an Omaha mental health therapist, to challenge Bacon in the 2nd, the state’s only competitive district. In the rural, geographically vast 3rd Congressional District, Republican U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith faces a challenger but is expected to win his party’s nomination. Two Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination within the district, which is overwhelmingly Republican. In West Virginia, incumbent Rep. Carol Miller is expected to hold her seat in the 1st Congressional District against four Republican challengers. In the state’s 2nd Congressional District, where McKinley and Mooney are battling each other for the GOP nomination, openly gay former Morgantown city councilor Barry Wendell is competing against security operations manager Angela Dwyer in the Democratic primary. Mooney has attacked McKinley for voting with 12 other House Republicans in favor of Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Trump, who won every single county in West Virginia in two presidential elections and said Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill should be “ashamed of themselves,” endorsed Mooney on the same day Biden signed the infrastructure law. Rep. David McKinley, a civil engineer by trade, received endorsements and praise from Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin and GOP Gov. Jim Justice over his infrastructure vote. He said it was time to put party politics aside to meet the needs of his constituents. “This wasn’t for Joe Biden — this was to help West Virginia,” he told The Associated Press. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Sheriff: Alabama inmate, jailer were prepared for a shootout
A murder suspect and the jailer who helped him escape from an Alabama lockup were carrying $29,000 in cash, four handguns, and an AR-15 rifle and were prepared for a shootout when they were captured, an Indiana sheriff said Tuesday. Authorities caught up with the pair on Monday, more than a week after the breakout and nearly 300 miles away, and rammed their car into a ditch after a brief chase. Escaped inmate Casey White, 38, surrendered, while jail official Vicky White, 56, was found with a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at a hospital, officials said. Authorities believe she shot herself, but a coroner will make the determination, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said. The end of the manhunt left authorities trying to piece together what happened during the 11 days that elapsed after Vicky White escorted Casey White from a Florence, Alabama, jail for what she falsely claimed was a mental health evaluation. The inmate and the long-divorced Vicky White appeared to have had a “jailhouse romance,” Alabama authorities said last week. They were not related. As for her role in the escape, the sheriff said: “He was not forcing her. It was a mutual relationship.” At the time of the breakout, Casey White was serving a 75-year prison sentence for attempted murder and other offenses and was awaiting trial on charges of stabbing a woman to death during a 2015 burglary. If convicted, he could get the death penalty. Investigators believe the pair spent about six days holed up at a motel in Evansville. Authorities discovered wigs intended to hide their identities. Wedding said investigators do not believe the two had relatives or other contacts in the city of 120,000. “They thought they’d driven long enough. They wanted to stop for a while, get their bearings straight, and then figure out the next place to travel,” the sheriff said. Authorities closed in on them after the manager of a car wash reported that a man closely resembling the 6-foot-9, 260-pound Casey White had been recorded by a surveillance camera getting out of a pickup truck. Investigators said they located the pickup, then learned that the pair may have switched to a Cadillac, which was then spotted outside a motel nearby. When the couple left the motel, police chased them down, authorities said. Casey White told investigators after his capture that “he was probably going to have a shootout at the stake of both of them losing their lives,” the sheriff said. The inmate appeared by video Tuesday in an Indiana courtroom, where he waived extradition, and authorities said he will be sent back to Alabama. An attorney representing White in the murder case, Jamy Poss, declined to comment. Vicky White, assistant director of corrections at the Lauderdale County jail, had put in for retirement ahead of the escape, and the day of the breakout, April 29, was her last day of work. A woman who worked with her for 16 years could barely speak through tears Tuesday. “I know she did wrong and made a terrible mistake, but she’s still your friend,” longtime jail employee Sherry Sylvester said. She said that White often tried to help prisoners, particularly ones without family. But Sylvester said she never saw White do anything that crossed the line: “She did everything by the book.” Connie Moore, Casey White’s mother, said she last spoke with him by phone the day before the escape. She said her son may not have known what was about to happen. “Everything was just as normal as it could be. I doubt he even knew he was leaving when she came in there to get him,” Moore said. A warrant was issued on May 2 for Vicky White, charging her with permitting or facilitating escape. Authorities said the plan appeared to have been in the works for some time. She sold her house for about half its market value and bought an SUV that she stashed at a shopping center without license plates. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Additional plaintiffs added to lawsuit against Kay Ivey and Scott Harris over COVID shutdowns
The Alabama Center for Law and Liberty (ACLL) has added plaintiffs in a March 2022 lawsuit stemming from Alabama’s COVID-19 lockdowns, 1819 News reported. According to a release from the ACLL, O’Dell Equipment Rental, LLC, and JoJo’s Mini Golf & Frozen Yogurt, both owned by Jonathan O’Dell, have been added to the Riccio v. Harris lawsuit that was filed in March against Gov. Kay Ivey and State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris. On March 19, the ACLL filed suit on behalf of Saranne Riccio and her business, Uncorked Providence, which also went out of business after the lockdowns. The suit claims that, after COVID hit in March of 2020, the lockdowns imposed by Ivey and Harris forced JoJo’s to close its doors because it was considered a “nonessential” business. It was shut down until May, and then only at half capacity. “JoJo’s was subject to that order until November 2020,” the release read. “These orders resulted in JoJo’s losing over 77% of its revenue, and it was forced to close in December of 2020. O’Dell was also forced to sign JoJo’s property back over to the bank.” “This suit is about three things: compensating our clients for their losses, holding our government accountable for its actions, and defending the principle of separation of powers.” ACLL President Matt Clark stated. “Dr. Harris and Gov. Ivey ran the state for an entire year without any meaningful input from the legislature. Just as taxation without representation was a major grievance of the American Founders, ‘shutdown without representation’ is the major grievance in this suit. The Alabama constitution gives the legislative branch the authority to make the law and the executive branch the authority to execute the law. When the two powers are combined in the executive branch, people get hurt, as our clients’ case demonstrates.” Other lawsuits have been filed against Harris and Ivey, including one lawsuit filed by seven Alabama residents. The group is represented by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and The Foundation for Moral Law. Their suit claims the two abused their power to impose Covid restrictions. “The Governor and State Health Officer of this State have clearly and repeatedly exceeded their authority under both the Constitution of the United States and the Alabama Constitution over the last six months,” Moore stated. “Unconstitutional restriction of church assembly and worship, discriminatory closing of businesses, stay at home orders, social distancing, wearing of masks, and restriction on travel are simply against our rights secured by the Constitution of the United States.” “Because the legislature failed in 2020 and 2021 to rebalance the powers of the legislature and the executive, and since Gov. Ivey views the people’s representatives as a ‘herd of turtles’ unworthy of a vote, the people have no other choice than to resort to the courts to ensure that something like this never happens again,” Clark stated. “Suits in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have resulted in successful precedents holding that, even in a pandemic, the executive branch’s authority is still limited. We hope that the Alabama courts will agree.”
Steve Flowers: Senate race down to the wire
The GOP Primary is less than two weeks away on May 24. It has been an interesting and expensive race to fill the seat of our venerable and powerful senior Senator Richard Shelby. There are three major primary contestants. Katie Britt, Mike Durant, and Mo Brooks are the horses or, as some might say, combatants, given the nature of the prevalence of negative advertising. Two of these three gladiators will be the recipient of the most votes on that momentous day and will face off in a runoff set for six weeks later on June 21. The winner of that June 21 runoff will be our next U.S. Senator. Winning the GOP Primary is tantamount to election for a statewide office in the Heart of Dixie, especially for a U.S. Senate Race. This race will probably wind up being the most expensive race in Alabama political history, especially when you add up the third-party expenditures. In modern-day national politics, a candidate’s individual war chest is not the telling story. We live in a world of third-party political action committees (PACs). These third-party PACs, based out of Washington, have spent more on their preferred candidate than has been spent directly by the candidates’ campaigns. These PACs are not supposed to coordinate with their preferred candidate, but they do. They share all information and polling and script their attack ads based on what they think you want to hear. These innocuous PACs have the meanest hired guns, who relish negative ads and seek to destroy their opposition. Why? Because negative ads work. The other political adage that has never changed is that money is the mother’s milk of politics. These three candidates possess or have received plenty of campaign resources, mostly from out of state. Allow me to summarize the top three U.S. Senate candidates, as well as their benefactors, their positions, and potential. Mo Brooks is backed by the Club for Growth. This group of very rich folks want less government and free trade with China. They and Mo Brooks are made for each other. They have been tied to the hip during Mo’s entire 11-year career in Congress. They want a senator who will have total disregard for their state or district and have total allegiance to their laissez-faire pro-China trade agenda. That is why Mo has voted against the needs of his district and Alabama. He has actually voted against agriculture and military defense spending, which are the mainstays of Alabama. Mo has dropped dramatically in the polls since the race began this time last year. He will now probably finish a distant third. When the race first began, and it looked like Brooks might be a player, the popular, wise, and witty Republican Senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, quipped, “A senate seat is a terrible thing to waste.” The runoff will probably be a Mike Durant and Katie Britt contest. Mike Durant has been the wild card in this race, who nobody saw coming, but he is a perfect prototype for winning an open U.S. Senate seat, especially in a pro-military state like Alabama. Durant is a war hero, a POW, and started his own military defense business. He has spent some of his own money but has been extensively backed by a national liberal group called the “More Perfect Union PAC.” The founder and major benefactor, Jake Harriman, is striving to elect more moderates, including Democrats and Republicans. This PAC wants “Republicans in Name Only” (RINOs). Therefore, RINO probably is the more accurate description of Durant. Durant is a phantom candidate who has run primarily a media campaign revealing he was shot down as a helicopter pilot over 40 years ago. If the term carpetbagger ever applied in modern-day Alabama politics, it applies to Durant. He has barely campaigned in Alabama, and he probably knows very few Alabamians. He hails from New Hampshire but prefers his palatial home in Colorado. A vote for Durant is like a pig in a poke; you do not know what you will be getting. However, you would be getting a person who decided he wanted to be a United States Senator but does not care what state you put behind his name: New Hampshire, Colorado, or Alabama. With Durant running a slick television-only campaign and not discussing issues, nobody knows where he stands on important issues. The one group that is extremely skeptical and apprehensive of him is the second amendment gun-owning NRA members of our state. Katie Britt is the mainstream conservative, pro-business candidate that understands Alabama and our needs. Most of her campaign contributions have come from Alabamians. In fact, she is the only real Alabamian in the race. 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.
Tommy Tuberville announces Service Academy appointments
Senator Tommy Tuberville announced twelve Alabama students who accepted their appointments to a U.S. service academy, along with one student who received a coveted Falcon Foundation scholarship. The Falcon Foundation is a non-profit foundation that provides scholarships to colleges or preparatory schools for motivated young people seeking admission to the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) and a career in the Air Force. Selection for these scholarships is limited, with only a maximum of 100 scholarships being awarded each year. These students were nominated by Tuberville to represent Alabama in the class of 2026 at one of the four service academies: the United States Air Force Academy, Military Academy, Merchant Marine Academy, and Naval Academy. This is Senator Tuberville’s first group of U.S. service academy appointments since assuming office. “These exceptional young Alabamians’ desire to serve ensures America’s military remains the strongest fighting force in the world.” commented Tuberville. “Receiving an appointment to one of these military institutions is a great honor that requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice. I am proud of their determination to reach this point and know they will continue to make our state and country proud.” U.S. service academies provide students wishing to serve our country’s military with the opportunity to serve while obtaining higher education. Service academy appointees go through an extensive process to receive a nomination. Applicants complete the required ACT and SAT exams, and provide letters of recommendation, a school transcript, along with the required application form. Upon graduation, students must commit to five years of active duty. A complete list of appointees can be found below. U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY Charles C. Heidepriem Hometown: Birmingham Parent: Suzanne Heidepriem School: Briarwood Christian School Joseph Shearer Hometown: Heflin Parents: April Marie Shearer and Joseph Hollis Jr. School: Ranburne High School Walker Zapp Hometown: Auburn Parents: Justin and Kelly Zapp School: Auburn High School U.S. MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY Jacob Fairbairn Hometown: Birmingham, AL Parents: Sherri Fairbairn School: Marion Military Institute U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY Gavin Comulada · Hometown: Huntsville · Parents: Oscar and Mary Elizabeth Comulada · School: Whitesburg Christian Academy Ian Howell · Hometown: Northport · Parents: Paul and Dianna Howell · School: Pelham High School Cooper Shafer · Hometown: Tuscaloosa · Parents: Brian Shafer · School: American Christian Academy Wesley Yeatman · Hometown: Birmingham, AL · Parents: James and Donna Yeatman · School: Oak Mountain High School U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY James Latona Hometown: Alabaster Parents: Norman and Shannon Latona School: Thompson High School Robert “Will” Stallworth Hometown: Hoover Parents: Rob and Heather Stallworth School: Hoover High School Clark Turner Hometown: Mobile Parents: John and Eran Clark Turner School: UMS-Wright Preparatory School Kaili Williams Hometown: Columbiana Parents: Rick and Leigh Williams School: Shelby County High School FALCON FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT Henry Rasmussen Hometown: Montgomery Parents: Reid and Lori Rasmussen School: St. James School
