U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville defends his hold on DOD nominations and speaks about his bill to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and his objections to what he says are attempts by the Pentagon to screen out white nationalists. Read more.
A new bill by U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from requiring banks and credit unions to report customers’ transactions or account balances beyond current statutory requirements. Currently, the Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to report transactions of $10,000 or more. A new proposal floated as part of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” taxing and spending overhaul would lower that threshold to $600. In an interview with Alabama Daily News Monday, Tuberville called the proposal “an outrageous intrusion of the government into people’s lives.” “We want everybody to pay their fair share. I’ve got no problem with that. But I don’t want the federal government, ‘big brother,’ to be harassing private citizens. I don’t want them harassing banks,” Tuberville said before introducing his bill, dubbed the Protecting Financial Privacy Act. Read more.
U.S. Sen Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., on Tuesday discussed Alabama's low vaccination rate with Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, and said that publicly giving more credit to former President Donald Trump for the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine would encourage more conservative skeptics to take it. In an exchange during a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Alabama's junior senator questioned the federal government's top health officials on a range of pandemic issues and urged them to adopt a message that appeals to Trump supporters who are skeptical of the Biden administration. "I think people need a unifying message from all of us because, in my state of Alabama, we don’t have everyone taking a vaccine, and we're having outbreaks as we speak,” Tuberville told Fauci. "You know, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump -- a lot of people in the South, a lot of people in my state. So Dr. Fauci, can you understand that unless this administration acknowledges the efforts of the last one, a large part of Americans, they're going to continue to feel like nothing's positive. They're not going to take the vaccine. You understand what I'm saying?” Read more.
