 So, I wanted to share a story with you out of the state of Alabama. It's a really encouraging, inspiring story, and it really demonstrates what's possible if political leaders actually listen to the will of the people. Of course, I'm just kidding. It's Alabama. It's a train wreck. The story's depressing. It speaks to how morally depraved our late stage capitalist society is. And I mean, I don't even know what to say about it. I can't really supplement this article that I'm about to read to you with much commentary because I think it kind of speaks for itself. The details here, they're gross enough to where there's not much to be said about this. But still, I can't not talk about this because it's just it's so it's so egregious. It's so gross. So CNN's Rebecca Reese and Devon M. Sires reports. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law Friday, a number of prison infrastructure bills that will use coronavirus relief funds to build new prisons in the state, calling it a pivotal movement for the trajectory of our state's criminal justice system. How inspiring. Ivy, a Republican, had convened a special session of the Alabama legislature to discuss how to fix what she has called a decades-long problem of prison infrastructure challenges. The governor said Friday's bill signing was the culmination of hard work and conversations between lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. I like to personally offer my thanks to the legislative leadership who are standing behind me right here for a successful special session. And what we believe will yield untold benefits to all Alabamians in the days ahead, Ivy said. You can't be serious. Earlier this week, Ivy defended her proposal to use the state's allotment of COVID-19 relief funds to build prisons after receiving criticism from Democrats. Their proposal included using up to 400 million of federal COVID-19 relief money, up to 785 million in bonds, and no more than 154 million from the state general fund to add prisons and renovate others. The state legislature gave the package final approval on Friday. Yeah, that's the story. Now, I shouldn't have to say this, but there are virtually endless possibilities for that money. I mean, she should actually be using it for COVID relief. Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country with only 43 percent of residents fully vaccinated and 53 percent with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines. So she could have used this money to set up mobile COVID vaccine sites in the most rural areas of the state. You could do that. You can do a lot of things. You can put it towards education, housing. You can set up a fund for low income residents to give them health care if Medicaid isn't doing the trick. There's so much that you could do. She's using it to build prisons. I just, what do you even say? That really speaks to her priorities as a governor. And this is kind of just microcosm of a bigger issue. We always spend more money when it comes to killing people, at least when it comes to what we're allowed to change, right? The discretionary budget in Congress, most of the time, more than half of that is spent on killing people and blowing up people. And in Alabama, they're using it to send people to prison. When are we as a society going to stop accepting this from politicians? When are we gonna stop electing politicians that prioritize locking people up and killing people over actually helping people? I don't know, but there's not much left to say about this. I just wanted to share it because this is kind of not the most shocking story to see out of a late-stage capitalist society, and it's never been a shocking story as it relates to Alabama because it's Alabama. But having said that, though, I couldn't not talk about this because Jesus Christ, what a fucked up thing. What a ridiculous thing to use COVID-19 relief funds while the pandemic is still going on to build prisons, just Jesus Christ.