I’m finding a lot of use for the Munch scream-face emoji.
… As the coronavirus pandemic engulfs Texas’ metropolitan areas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has left the door open for massive indoor gatherings. And organizers are moving forward with some big ones, including the Texas Republican party’s upcoming convention in Houston.
Harris County, where Houston is located, has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, but the Texas GOP plans to press forward with plans to hold an in-person convention from July 16-18 in the city’s George R. Brown Convention Center.
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The Texas GOP convention is expected to draw about 6,000 attendees…
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The party does not plan to require masks at the convention, though chairman James Dickey acknowledged Tuesday that Harris County is currently under an order mandating that businesses require customers to wear masks.
“The Republican Party isn’t considered a commercial entity so they themselves are not required to comply with the mask order,” said Melissa Arredondo, a spokesperson for the office of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who issued the mask order.
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“Our decision to hold an in-person convention comes as a direct result of wanting to protect the rights of our delegates as the grassroots of our Party, as well as to lead the way in promoting and practicing our principle of personal responsibility,” Dickey wrote in a statement.
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Gotta proteck 'em grassroots, 'n all, don’tcha know.
This is actually a 'reasonably bright (some at least) Republican Idea, but it’s not worth it’s own thread and I don’t know where else to put it so…Mississippi House of Representatives has begun action to change their flag (which contains the “Rebel Battle Flag” that has been in the news). https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/mississippi-confederate-flag-vote/index.html
By a vote of 85-34, the newly passed resolution suspends the chamber’s rules so that lawmakers can consider a bill that would change or remove the flag.
Earlier on Saturday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a tweet that he would sign a bill to remove Confederate imagery from the state flag if the legislature sends him a bill this weekend.
Reason this is noteworthy is that the Mississippi House has about 75 Republicans and only 45 Democrats (with 2 Independents), so a vote like this could only be done with substantial Republican help. IIRC, A republican member introduced the resolution.
…Of course, the 34 votes against were probably Republican and we can be assured that the stupid will flow out of them in due time…
No, this is going to be passed by the legislature tomorrow and the governor has said he will sign it. The idea of letting this go to the voters caused the corporate donors to go ballistic. They knew what the voters would do and were afraid of boycotts from everyone from sports associations to hollywood and they were not going to let that happen. In the end, it’s progress but it’s still about the money.
:The resolution states a commission would be created to redesign the state flag. The commission would recommend a new design by Sept. 14, and voters would approve or reject that design on Nov. 3."
Ah. Thanks. I didn’t see that additional information. But for now, the voters will just get to decide on a design. Yes, it could get more contentious down the line, but I think the tide has turned here. And this is from someone who lives in Memphis, who never thought it would happen. Even some Ole Miss alumni are rethinking things. Pigs are flying.
Actually, the entire K-State football team has now banded together and stated that they won’t practice or play until the University changes its policy. Here is the official statement by the football team:
To our family at Kansas State: Due to the recent disparaging, insensitive, and unsettling comments made by a fellow student, we as a football team, after consultation with students from campus organizations, as well as students from the general student body, feel it is best for us to stand with the students. We are demanding that Kansas State University put a policy in place that allows a student to be dismissed for displaying openly racist, threatening or disrespectful action toward a student or groups of students.
We have resolved that we cannot play, practice, or meet until these demands are heard and actions taken. We love Kansas State but we must stand together and protect all students moving forward.
Hugh Hewitt, the Trump apologist who appears on the panel on Meet the Press, made the claim that yesterday, there were more deaths from coronavirus in Germany than there were in the U.S. However, it turns out that he had apparently looked at and quoted the number for the new cases in Germany yesterday, not the new deaths (Hewitt: Trump Has To Get Back To One-On-One Interviews With As Many People Like He Did In 2016 - YouTube). As any sentient human would know, the number of daily deaths in Germany was nowhere remotely close to the number in the U.S. (and this is still true if you look on a per capita basis).
At least he did issue a correction, but it sort of begs the point: Why would anybody take seriously the commentary of someone who lives in a world where the Germans are seeing more coronavirus deaths in a day than America is seeing? This isn’t just a casual error (like saying “120 million” when one means “120 thousand”). It is living in a completely alternative reality that bears zero relation to the actual reality. In his reality, where Germany has more deaths than the U.S., the U.S. is actually doing a relatively good job in controlling the virus (and the media really is treating Trump unfairly by failing to provide this sort of context). In the actual reality, the U.S. is doing a much worse job and the media is correctly reporting this fact. He can’t expect his opinions to be taken at all seriously when he has absolutely no grasp of the facts whatsoever!
However in keeping with their Republican party bi-laws that require every action to contain at least a pinch of stupidity, the new flag must contain the words “In god we trust”.
They could keep “Rebels” but change the meaning. For example, I graduated from a Louisiana high school where the teams had been the Scottish Rebels since it was founded as an all-girls school in the Sixties. They went coed a few years before I was enrolled.
I’m not sure they could. As much as I love the spirit of the word in a neutral sense, how could a team from Mississippi be called Rebels and not be associated with the Confederacy? I can just see the winks as people say, “Oh, now it’s just a celebration of nonconformity!”
