7. The media is outraged that some criminals may have to pay their own bills

• For some reason, it is a big news story that some local law enforcement agencies would rather incarcerated individuals pay for their medical treatment rather than taxpayers pay for the treatment they receive.
• While Alabama’s media is giddy over this story, and its premise that it’s wrong to charge criminals for their care, the argument is that it is a violation of the inmates’ rights even though the inmates are receiving medical care and then being billed for it instead of being denied the care outright.

6. Death row inmate could get a new trial

• In Jefferson County, a judge is considering granting death row inmate Toforest Johnson, who in 1998 was convicted of killing Jefferson County Deputy William Hardy three years prior, a new trial due to a claim that a key witness only testified because the state was offering a reward.
• The key witness was Violet Ellison, who said that she listened in on a three-way phone call with Johnson, who on the phone call confessed to killing Deputy Hardy. Ellison then went on to receive $5,000 for her testimony, but the issue is that Johnson has claimed that the prosecutors never informed the defense that Ellison was a paid witness.

5. Buttigieg is using Jesus to call for more refugees

• On Christmas Day, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg went on Twitter to wish everyone a “Merry Christmas,” but first, he said, “Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee.”
• Even though there is no refugee story in the virgin birth, a popular liberal talking point, Buttigieg’s 2020 Democratic presidential campaign has very recently released Buttigieg’s plan to increase refugees admitted into the country, setting the minimum at 95,000.

4. Gardendale taxpayers pounded for trying to leave Jefferson County Schools

• The City of Gardendale attempted to start its own school district because the citizens were tired of being forced into the Jefferson system. A federal judge said they and their kids were trapped, and now they have to pay extra for the privilege.
• The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and former federal judge U.W. Clemon get the money because U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala said the parents “acted in bad faith” because of posts on Facebook that were used as justification to stop the school system from being created, speaking of bad faith.

3. Police in Alabama are being killed with stolen guns

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that out of the six police officers killed in Alabama in 2019, five of them were killed with stolen guns.
• This is the highest number of officers shot and killed on duty since 1987; nationally there were 128 officers killed while on duty, and Texas, California and New York are the only states who had higher numbers than Alabama.

2. Trump continues to tweet about impeachment

• Since the House has passed two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has delayed sending the articles to the Senate, tensions have risen between the president and Pelosi.
• Trump tweeted, “Crazy Nancy should clean up her filthy dirty District and help the homeless there. A primary for N?” Trump has also said that the Democrats are “liars” and “hypocrites” for their handling of impeachment by deeming him a national security threat and then delaying the impeachment process.

1. Gary Palmer blasts Speaker Pelosi, says she isn’t interested in a fair process

• U.S. Representative Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) spoke about the impeachment process and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) keeping articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump from moving to the Senate and he thinks this is far from over.
• Palmer repeated Pelosi’s claim that she won’t send the articles of impeachment “until she is sure that there will be a fair process,” but Palmer said that this is just a way of saying she wants “a rigged process.” Palmer also noted how there were things that happened during the House impeachment process that “rigged” the process, such as “witnesses that they declared classified so that you and I and the rest of the country could see that, couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

It has been a week since the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives have passed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not yet formally transferred them to the U.S. Senate for trial.

Pelosi claims she will not do so until the GOP-led Senate promises a “fair” impeachment trial. However, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) says he suspects other motivations for Pelosi’s inaction.

Palmer told Birmingham radio Talk 99.5’s “Matt & Aunie Show” that he believed Pelosi wanted promises of a “rigged process.”

“She says that she will not send the articles of impeachment over until she is sure that there will be a fair process,” Palmer said. “What she is really saying is, ‘Until she is sure there is a rigged process.’ The whole process in the House was rigged. I spoke on the floor and it got under Adam Schiff’s skin a little bit when I pointed out a lot of what they did was in secret, he didn’t like that. But it was in secret.”

“There’s testimony from witnesses that they declared classified so you and I and the rest of the country couldn’t see that, couldn’t hear what they were saying,” he continued. “When we get the majority back, I want all that declassified. I want people to know what really happened. They made up this whole idea of an abuse of power. It is not a crime. And the Constitution requires high crimes and misdemeanors. And it is not a crime. And this obstruction of Congress — we used to call that executive privilege.”

Palmer recounted efforts by the then-Republican-led House of Representatives to investigate the so-called Fast and Furious scandal and alleged abuses by the IRS regarding the tax statuses of conservatives groups, and how the Obama administration used “executive privilege” to stymy those efforts. He noted the different standard that applies to Trump.

“When this president does it, that’s obstruction of Congress,” Palmer added. “That’s made up.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) is upping the amount of deer to be checked for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), especially in northwest Alabama, after deer in Mississippi and Tennessee have recently tested positive for the deadly disease.

Chuck Sykes, director of the ACNR’s Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, told the MGM Advertiser that CWD was “three to five years” from showing up in the state and threatening a big chunk of the state’s hunting industry.

Alabama’s hunting industry has a $1.8 billion annual economic impact, per the Hunting Heritage Foundation.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Chronic Wasting Disease affects North American cervids like deer, elk and moose. It is always fatal to the infected animal. CWD affects the brain, spinal cord, lymph node system and many other tissues in susceptible species.

The ADCNR’s website says that CWD is not known to be capable of infecting humans, and while “a variety of species can be experimentally infected with CWD, there is currently no evidence that the disease can be spread naturally from cervids to livestock.”

Alabama deer hunters can find a location to drop off samples for testing at these locations. The sample dropped off must include the head of the deer.

Hunters who drop off a deer for sampling should receive their results in three to four weeks.

Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: henry@yellowhammernews.com or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.

In one of the most in-depth reports yet on former University of Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts’ storied college football career, the 2019 Heisman Trophy finalist discusses his relationship with Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban and “the special place” Bama will always have in his heart.

ESPN on Thursday published an article entitled, “Jalen Hurts has captivated two of college football’s most rabid fan bases.”

The report chronicles Hurts’ journey — which he has called unprecedented in the past — from high school to UA to leading the Oklahoma Sooners against LSU in the College Football Playoffs semifinal against LSU this coming Saturday.

Of course, when discussing that journey, his time at Alabama always seems to be distilled to two games now: the National Championship game against Georgia in which Hurts was benched at halftime and the SEC Championship game against the Bulldogs the following season in which Hurts took over for an injured Tua Tagovailoa and led the Tide to an Hollywood-esque comeback victory.

ESPN’s article details that this moment seemed to be destined, or at least Hurts thought it was.

“Every time he came to me,” UA head strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran told ESPN, “I said, ‘Dude, I just have this feeling that you’re going to go in and be Superman. You’re going to take off the glasses, go in the phone booth and put on your Superman outfit and come out and save the day. I don’t know when it’s going to be. It could be Game 7.'”

“No,” Hurts would reportedly respond, “it’s going to be definitely against Georgia, right?”

Alabama played Georgia in the SEC championship game, a reprise of the national championship game the year before, right down to being back in Atlanta. Hurts recalls that being his best week of practice all season.

“In my head, I just felt like, ‘Heisman front-runner goes down, and I come in and win the game,'” Hurts added. “I knew it was going to happen the whole time. Same stadium, same team, same uniforms, same sideline. I mean, just different hair.”

That exact scenario played out, and remembers when Hurts scored the winning touchdown with 1:04 to play and then mimed pulling his shirt apart to reveal an “S” on his chest in a Cam Newton-style Superman celebration.

And, of course, that postgame will live in Tide lore for generations, too. Saban, long known for his stoicism, put his arm around Hurts and could barely choke out words in his emotional nationally televised on-field interview.

“I’m so proud of this guy for what he’s done this year,” Saban memorably said. “I can’t even tell you.”

Hurts, speaking moments after Saban, humbly emphasized, “I put it in God’s hands. I put it in God’s hands. He handled it for me and here we are.”

ESPN’s Thursday report also outlined how Hurts and Saban grew to realize they had much more in common than a love for winning. Their personalities and outlooks seemed to be a perfect match, which is something that originally drew Hurts to the University of Alabama.

“We had the same approach to stuff,” Hurts explained. “But it’s like he didn’t realize that I was a mirror image of him. It didn’t hit him [that], ‘I’m just like you, coach. I’m pissed, just like you are. I’m eager for opportunities to get better, just like you are.'”

“I think that’s why we always had a love for each other,” Hurts added of the similarities with Saban, “and our relationship will never die because of that connection.”

ESPN wrote, “That’s what made his decision to transfer to Oklahoma so emotionally wrenching.”

The outlet continued to report that Hurts misses his former Tide teammates. However, his decision to transfer to Oklahoma has paid major dividends for him on the field. His legacy could grow even more when the Sooners play LSU for a shot at the National Championship in two-days time.

Saban this season has said of Hurts, “There’s never been a guy that anywhere in college football that did things more correctly and set a better example as a leader than Jalen Hurts did while he was here by staying here after he was replaced as a starter.”

“I have the utmost respect for this guy as a person and a competitor — and glad to see him doing well,” Saban added.

You can read the entire ESPN report here, which has much more on Hurts, including commentary from his father and former Tide offensive coordinator Mike Locksley.

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn

Carolina Panthers quarterback and Auburn legend Cam Newton is known for his Superman celebration. However, it was Panthers rookie linebacker Christian Miller, who played his college football at the University of Alabama, who became Superman to Northport’s Jaden Elijah Smith, who passed away earlier this month after a long battle with cancer.

A Christmas-day report from The Charlotte Observer powerfully chronicled the friendship that grew between Miller and Smith, explaining that the outlet came upon the story after Miller recently selected Children’s of Alabama as his cause during the NFL’s annual “My Cause, My Cleats” initiative in December.

Smith, 11, was a normal Alabama boy; he loved hunting, the outdoors — and his Panthers blanket, among other things. He was also bravely fighting Stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma.

He was diagnosed with this rare cancer in October 2018, Miller’s senior season. Smith would subsequently meet Miller through Miller’s mother, Lisa, who worked with Smith’s father, Dwayne, at the University of Alabama. When Lisa found out about Jaden Smith, she and her two sons, Christian and CJ, made spending time with him a priority, according to The Charlotte Observer.

While the families reportedly did not connect until toward the end of Christian Miller’s time at the Capstone, the impression left on both the Millers and the Smiths was powerful and lasting nonetheless.

“Immediately when they found out about Jaden, they wanted to meet him and my family, so they came out and spent the afternoon with us,” Smith’s mother, Melissa, advised. “You would think we were all just a family. Jaden has adored Christian and CJ. They’re just great boys.”

Smith had an impact on Miller almost immediately. The then-Crimson Tide star raised money from his vertical jump at the NFL combine for Children’s of Alabama, the hospital Smith was at, in honor of Miller’s new buddy.

Over the next several months, Miller made a concerted effort to send messages and gifts to Smith at every possible opportunity. While seeing him in person was hard because Smith’s treatment schedule precluded visits and Miller was embarking on his busy rookie season in the NFL, the friendship grew even stronger from a distance.

“It was inspiring because he reminded me of myself,” Miller said before Smith passed away. “He’s biracial like I am. Physically, he kind of looks like me when I was a kid, but even cooler, he has a great love for the outdoors, he got into it even earlier than I did, I was later —probably middle school. He likes to do all the outdoor stuff, he likes sports … It just kind of just touched me, knowing how tough that situation was, knowing that just my presence or sending him a message, the smallest things meant so much.”

Miller and his family sent Smith care packages with Panthers gear and items that the team’s equipment staff helped collect. Miller would always include a personal letter with these gifts, and Melissa Smith shared that one recent note ended with Miller calling Smith “his little brother.”

That courageous boy took his Panthers blanket with him every time he went to the hospital, and it is in countless pictures. While Miller had a big impact on him, Smith left an indelible impression on the NFL linebacker, too.

“I can’t even put into words how much he’s been through, that alone is just like it makes me realize when I have my issues or my things that go on, it just makes me realize those are small things in comparison,” Miller remarked late in November. “He knocks it out of the park, man, he’s tough. A lot tougher than I am. I get a lot out of it, probably more than he does, he keeps me going.”

At Smith’s funeral this month, everyone was asked to wear something with a Superman logo, bright colors or camouflage.

“We aren’t mourning, we are celebrating,” Melissa Smith posted on Facebook.

From afar, Miller showed his support. He arrived to the Panthers game against the Seattle Seahawks that Sunday in a Superman t-shirt.

Miller reflected, “What a way to honor him, with him being such a big Panthers fan now, represent him as I’m coming in, have him with me in spirit. Again, just in his honor, he deserves that and I know he’s smiling down and it meant a lot to him.”

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn