Thread: Luther Strange Sought to Weaken Alabama’s Tough Immigration Law

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 4h4 hours ago

Looking forward to Friday night in the Great State of Alabama. I am supporting "Big" Luther Strange because he was so loyal & helpful to me!

That makes more sense than any of the speculation has so far.

Originally Posted by Judy

That makes more sense than any of the speculation has so far.

I don't think it makes any sense at all. Luther Strange is an establishment guy that is supported by organizations, neoconservatives and their corporate cronies that support increased immigration to fill American jobs. He did not support Trump early on and now he's all up his butt because he think he needs Trump endorsement to win. Trump's endorsement already cost Rep. Mo Brooks is shot at the job, now he (Trump) is working to take down Moore. IMO, Trump is not working in our best interest by supporting Luther Strange.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 4h4 hours ago

Looking forward to Friday night in the Great State of Alabama. I am supporting "Big" Luther Strange because he was so loyal & helpful to me!

Canned statement.

Oh ... well, Trump isn't done Tweeting for Strange. Here's another one:

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 15m15 minutes ago

Alabama is sooo lucky to have a candidate like "Big" Luther Strange. Smart, tough on crime, borders & trade, loves Vets & Military. Tuesday!

I believe that the people of Alabama will turn out to hear Trump, but it will not sway them to vote for Strange if they have already decided on Moore.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

I believe that the people of Alabama will turn out to hear Trump, but it will not sway them to vote for Strange if they have already decided on Moore.

I hope those showing up all have 'NO DACA AMNESTY' or 'DEPORT DACA ILLEGAL' signs in one hand and 'JUST SAY NO TO STRANGE' in the other.

Enjoy a little local flavor on Strange. Then look around at AL .com and you will find plenty of opinions.

Can Luther Strange wash away 'Bentley's cooties' before election?

Updated on August 8, 2017 at 1:49 PM

Posted on August 6, 2017 at 6:00 AM


Luther Strange and former Gov. Bentley(Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)

By The Associated Press

Alabama Sen. Luther Strange got his appointment to Congress earlier this year from a governor who later resigned under the cloud of an ethics scandal.

The appointment by then-Gov. Robert Bentley gave Strange the advantage of incumbency in the race to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate. It also became his chief liability since Strange, as state attorney general, oversaw the investigation of Bentley.

"He's got too many Bentley cooties on him. He can't wash them off," said Kevin Spriggs, a Baldwin County voter.

The sex-tainted scandal that ended Bentley's political career is dragging into the U.S. Senate race as rivals try to capitalize on what they see as Strange's Achilles heel.
"Luther Strange, Mr. Corruption himself," Dr. Randy Brinson, a Montgomery doctor, who is running in the crowded GOP field, said during a recent press conference. Brinson is the former head of the state Christian Coalition.

Strange calls the criticisms unmerited and said he opened the investigation that eventually led to Bentley resigning and taking a plea deal.

"I asked the team I put together to follow the truth wherever it led. They did. So the governor resigned," Strange told The Associated Press

Bentley, a mild-manner dermatologist, spent the last year bogged down in an unlikely sex-tainted scandal after recordings surfaced of him making provocative comments to a close female aide. Legislators launched an impeachment probe over whether state resources were misused and complaints were filed to the state ethics commission.

Strange said he opened an investigation into what he called the "dueling allegations" between Bentley and his former law enforcement secretary Spencer Collier, who exposed Bentley's relationship. Bentley accused Collier of misusing state funds. Strange's office later cleared Collier.

But some people had misgivings about Strange's dealings with Bentley.

Strange on Nov. 3 asked lawmakers to pause the impeachment investigation while his office did "related work." Strange contends it was not a favor to Bentley, but was done because there was concern the impeachment investigation could interfere with what his office was doing. Strange argues that, at that point, there was no indication that Trump would win or appoint Sessions to create a Senate opening.

"That was before the election so there was no politics even conceivable at that point," Strange said.

Strange interviewed with Bentley for the position, but Strange said the status of the investigation was not discussed.

In February, Bentley appointed Strange to Sessions' seat and said he would hold the seat until 2018. The move irked some lawmakers who revived the impeachment push. The state's new governor moved up the election to 2017 where Strange faces a crowded field of challengers including U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and state Sen. Trip Pittman.

Pittman said Strange should not have sought a favor from Bentley when his office was investigating him.

Bentley appeared to have some consternation about appointing Strange, rolling out lists of finalists and semi-finalists before finally naming Strange.

Bentley announced his resignation in April on the same day that lawmakers began impeachment hearings. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor campaign finance violations in order to end the state probe. The governor told The Associated Press that he wanted to relieve himself, and the state, from the drumbeat of the scandal.

"If I had thought he would appoint some crony or friend (as attorney general) I certainly wouldn't have taken it. ... The only bad result would have been if someone came in and tried to interfere with the investigation, which they didn't," Strange said.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...sh_away_b.html

Money won't cover up that Strange Bentley stench



(JD Crowe/jdcrowe@al.com)

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By J.D. Crowe | jdcrowe@al.com
on May 11, 2017 at 6:30 AM

Luther Strange had a chance to be one of the few Alabama politicians to rise above the good ol' boy stereotype and run for higher office on a relatively clean record of accomplishment.As Attorney General, he took over a job that was turned into a joke by his predecessor, Troy King. Though he recused himself from the Mike Hubbard ethics case, Strange deserves credit for assembling a team that won a conviction of the most powerful player in one of the country's most politically corrupt states.And then he did the one thing that stinks up his credibility as a fighter of corruption: He sought and accepted Jeff Sessions' vacated U.S. Senate seat from the goober governor his office was investigating. Too easy, too sleazy.

But all the money in Washington won't cover up that Strange Bentley stench any time soon.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/...hat_stran.html

Whitmire: Luther Strange and Robert Bentley show Alabama how much corruption costs



Senator Luther Strange speaks at Boy Scout Eagle Breakfast at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Thursday April 13, 2017. (Bob Gathany/bgathany@AL.com) (Bob Gathany)

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By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on April 19, 2017 at 7:14 AM, updated April 20, 2017 at 10:12 AM

Corrupt government is expensive government.

There are legal fees, of course, and the price of investigations, but the murkiest figure is the cost to public trust. How do you put a price tag on something like that?
But this time we have one, and it's going to be a nasty bill to pay -- $15 million, give or take a couple of million.

That's how much a special election for United States Senate will cost Alabama taxpayers, and no matter what some Alabama politicos say, holding an election later this year was optional.

At least until Robert Bentley and Luther Strange struck their deal.

Words matter

Nearly a century ago, the Alabama Legislature wasn't careful where it put the word "forthwith" in a sentence. As a result, you can read the law for replacing a U.S. Senator two different ways.

The Grammatically Correct Interpretation holds that the governor must forthwith set a date for a special election, but not necessarily to hold an election forthwith.

This is the interpretation Gov. Robert Bentley used when he appointed Luther Strange and set a special election to be held almost two years later, in 2018. By holding the special election at the same time as the state's other elections, it wouldn't cost taxpayers any more money. Or so the argument goes.

So that's one interpretation.

The other -- let's call it the Contextually Correct Interpretation -- says that, since the rest of that section of the code talks about getting special elections done ASAP, then any messy grammar shouldn't get in the way of holding an election PDQ.

That's the interpretation Gov. Kay Ivey accepted this week when she reversed Bentley's decision, setting a series of primary elections, runoffs and general election to be held later this year.

In the end, we pay

The important point here is that the law is ambiguous enough that you can read it to mean whatever you want. But Alabama and its new governor chose the latter.
Why?

It's a matter of politics and public trust.

In short, Bentley's appointment of Strange stunk up Montgomery so bad that we now have to pay $15 million just to throw open the windows and clear the stench out.

As attorney general, Strange was overseeing an investigation of the governor at the same time he was soliciting the appointment from the governor. It's a clear conflict of interest, and to just about everybody looking from the outside in, it reeked of rotten politics.

When pushed on the matter, Strange tried to talk out both sides of this mouth, even suggesting that there never had been an investigation of the governor when, in fact, there was.

Let me be clear about something. Between the two of them, I don't think either Strange or Bentley could muster the guts to sit across a desk from the other and say, "Listen, here's how the thing is going to work ..." But in politics, that's what surrogates are for, right?

No matter if there was a quid pro quo, it is inappropriate for any prosecutor to seek a favor or thing of value from someone he's investigating. Period.

Regardless of how the appointment worked, Strange and Bentley both walked away from the deal looking like crooks.

In a better Alabama, we wouldn't have to worry about any of this, because in a better Alabama, our governor wouldn't have done anything wrong to start with and our attorney general wouldn't have anything to investigate.

In a better Alabama, we could trust our governor to make a good pick, and we could then wait patiently for the next election cycle to make a permanent replacement.

But this isn't that Alabama. Strange and Bentley were not those elected officials. And now, this Alabama will be $15 million lighter because of it.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/...bert_bent.html

Let's count the lies in Luther Strange's first campaign ad

Updated May 10, 2017
Posted May 10, 2017

By Kyle Whitmire | AL.com
A new 100-second campaign ad Sen. Luther Strange shared on Twitter Tuesday night tells some tall, strange tales. It’s the first campaign ad for the special election to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, and considering a Senate super PAC just dropped more than $2.6 million behind Strange in this race, you’d better get ready to see a lot more like it.

The ad begins with Strange steering his pickup truck into a car wash. It appears covered in the sort of filth you might get out the back end of a sick cow. There's a lot of BS in this ad, and if you're not careful, you might get some on you.

Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com

“We sent him to Montgomery to clean up corruption and Big Luther Strange kept his word,” the narrator says. “Fighting corrupt Montgomery insiders and special interests.”

The first part of this sentence is arguably true. Strange defeated incumbent Troy King in the 2010 GOP primary, in large part because King stunk of connections to gambling interests.

The second half of the sentence is where things begin to fall apart.

Next, we see headlines from a fictional newspaper called the “Valley Times.” You know it's fiction, because anybody who ever wrote a story like these couldn't get a job at the Onion.



For instance: “Strange will investigate Bentley.”

This is particularly galling, considering that Strange never admitted to investigating Bentley for any such headline ever to have been written. In fact, while Strange was soliciting his appointment from the governor, he said it had been unfair for the press to say that any such investigation was taking place.

Unfair, in the sense, that the investigation was totally true and happening at the time Strange was soliciting an appointment from the man he was supposed to be investigating.



Believe me, if Robert Bentley had pled guilty to a “sex coverup,” I would cut somebody if they tried to get between me and that headline.

In reality, he pled out to some misdemeanor campaign finance violations. Not as sexy, I know.

Despite any of that business, though, when Bentley did resign from office, Strange was getting situated as Bentley’s appointee to the United States Senate — an appointment he solicited while his office was investigating Bentley.

If Strange thinks that counts as cleaning up corruption, then he must be drinking windshield washer fluid behind the car wash.




More breaking news from the Valley Times.

This ad seems to suggest that Strange had something to do with the trial and conviction of former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.

There’s just one problem with that.



Because Strange had campaign business ties to Hubbard, he had to recuse himself from the case. An acting attorney general oversaw Hubbard’s prosecution and Deputy Attorney General Matt Hart prosecuted the case at trial.

By recusing, Strange was supposed to have nothing to do with it, and if he’s now saying that wasn’t the case, then maybe that’s the sort of issue Hubbard might find useful on appeal.



More fake news from the Valley Times. Just so we’re clear here, below is the real headline after the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling.





The ad then proceeds to force-feed us rancid red meat like it’s chow time in Guantanamo and we’re the inmates. But then it gets to this.




That’s right. Sen. Strange will help Donald Trump drain the swamp. The ad forgets to mention that before Strange was elected to office in Alabama … he was a registered Washington lobbyist for Transocean, one of the companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

But maybe this ad has it all wrong. Maybe this is the super PAC saying these things and just not getting the facts straight. But nope.





This ad was approved by Luther Strange.
Watch the full ad below.



http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/.../post_177.html

Beltway blackballing: GOP DC elites shut out Strange's Senate challengers



Luther Strange was appointed by an unpopular governor under shady circumstances, but GOP's Senate leaders are treating him like an incumbent. (Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)

By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com

on May 03, 2017 at 6:15 AM, updated May 03, 2017 at 1:53 PM

When I talked to him Monday, state Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh said he isn't ready yet to announce his political intentions, but he had already selected a national political firm to run a campaign, just in case. If he runs for United States Senate in a special election later this year, he will have to declare his candidacy before the qualifying deadline on May 17.

Time is precious.

But about a week ago, he says, that firm called to let him know they couldn't run his campaign, after all. When Marsh asked them why, they explained that they could suffer political retaliation.

State Rep. Ed Henry says he's run into the same problems.

"It is evident that Washington, D.C., controls Washington, D.C.," Henry said. "The people of Alabama or any other state have very little influence on these races."

As stories go, this one might should come with a tinfoil hat, except that it's true.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has warned national political consulting firms to stay away from anyone challenging Luther Strange.

It makes no difference to them that Strange has only been in Washington a couple of months.

It doesn't matter that Strange was appointed to the office by Robert Bentley, a widely unpopular governor who was forced from office, to cheers from across the state.

It matters not that Strange solicited that appointment from Bentley while his office had an open investigation into the governor and his staff.

The NRSC is making no secret about it. Strange is, in their book, an incumbent, and just like any other Washington insider, he is entitled to the benefits and privileges that club membership confers.

"We have made it very clear from the beginning that Sen. Luther Strange would be treated as an incumbent," NRSC spokeswoman Katie Martin told Politico. "It has also been a clear policy that we will not use vendors who work against our incumbents."

Got that? If a firm works for Marsh, Henry, Roy Moore or anyone else who might jump in, then they're blackballed. With 33 Senate races on the ballot in 2018, with about half of those expected to be competitive, getting cut out of 2018 is an existential threat for these consultants, and a risk that most will refuse to take.

The NRSC's threat to campaign consultants follows reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell personally asked Gov. Kay Ivey not to schedule a special election to replace Jeff Sessions until 2018.

Meanwhile, Strange already has $763,612 in his campaign account, while his opponents will have to catch up with him $2,700 at a time, the maximum contribution allowed under federal campaign law.

And it's important to understand that these political consulting firms are instrumental not for how to spend campaign money, but raising it. They're the guys with the lists of donors and the secret passageways around campaign finance restrictions. Without one of these teams on your side, a candidate can die in the desert.

And right now, Strange's D.C. supporters are cutting Alabama candidates off from this kind of help. Because God help us if we ever had a fair fight.

This is how the power of incumbency works, and it's also how democracy rots, because it deprives voters of the thing they need for this system to work -- a choice.

Officially the motto of Alabama is "We dare defend our rights," but anybody who's lived here knows what the real one is: "We shall not be told." Tell an Alabamian to look both ways before crossing the street and he'll jump in front of a moving bus just to show you who's in charge here. If a political machine tries to force a false choice on us, we'll set the damn thing on fire, even if somebody's locked us in the room with it. Mutually assured destruction is written into our DNA.

All of this is to say, you folks in Washington D.C. better be careful with the game you're playing. Alabamians aren't going to take well to this, or to the candidate you're forcing on us.

We'll pick another, just to show you, and consequences be damned. Maybe Roy Moore. Or God help us, maybe even a Democrat.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/...gop_dc_el.html