December 22, 2020

Meanwhile at Costco...

...a super flusher.

December 22, 2020

Texas reports more than 10,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 for the first time since July

Read more: https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2020/texas-coronavirus-cases-map/

December 22, 2020

Followup: Walker County commissioners vote to keep Confederate monument at courthouse

The monument honoring “Confederate Patriots” that stands outside the Walker County Courthouse in Huntsville won’t be going anywhere.

Monday at their regular meeting, the Walker County Commissioners Court voted unanimously to keep the monument where it is. The move comes after nearly six months of public testimony, where the court has remained mute, until now.

“It’s been a long struggle, but this monument doesn’t belong to us … it doesn’t belong to this county,” Walker County Judge Danny Pierce said. “We didn’t place it there, someone else did, and like the testimony said this morning, it represents guys that did not think of owning slaves.

“We are elected to represent all of the people. I live in a black neighborhood and my neighbors are behind me 100 percent.”

Read more: https://www.itemonline.com/news/walker-county-commissioners-vote-to-keep-confederate-monument-at-courthouse/article_61850124-43c3-11eb-92e2-c3ec3ccaac42.html
(Huntsville Item)

Earlier thread:
Vote set on Confederate monument in Walker County
https://www.democraticunderground.com/107850356

December 21, 2020

Texas Republicans Must Call Out Donor Steve Hotze Before Someone gets Hurt

Steve Hotze’s website will tell you he is a “Physician, Radio Host, and Best Selling Author” leading a “wellness revolution”. But politicos know him as a controversial QAnon conservative from Houston who wields considerable influence with top Republicans including Gov. Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. That’s because Hotze is President of the Conservative Republicans of Texas and a power player in Harris County where ~25% of GOP primary votes are cast. Hotze was also one of the Republicans behind the failed lawsuit to throw out 127,000 ballots in Harris County. Now a foot soldier of one of Hotze’s other organizations has been arrested for an alleged-coordinated attack on an innocent man thought to have orchestrated a massive, but non-existent, voter fraud scheme.

A former Houston police Captain named Mark Aguirre was paid over $200,000 by Hotze’s organization Liberty Center for God and Country the day after he allegedly attacked an air-conditioner repairman he had been surveilling for four days. Aguirre was hired by Hotze and believed the repairman was holding up to 750,000 ballots, none of which were found. In fact, a Harris County elections task force recently concluded that there was, “no proof of any election tampering, ballot harvesting, voter suppression, intimidation or any other type of foul play that might have impacted the legitimate cast or count of a ballot.”

Hotze fights the culture war on all fronts and you can bet he’s always ready to fire some dastardly salvo. Earlier this year during the height of the George Floyd protests a public information request revealed that Hotze wanted Gov. Abbott to order National Guardsmen “to shoot to kill if any of these son-of-a-bitch people start rioting like they have in Dallas.” He said “the only way to restore order” was to just “kill’em.”

The Freedom Network has called Hotze’s group the Conservative Republicans of Texas a “cesspool of extremism and hate” and they have been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their anti-LGBT propaganda. In 2015, Hotze led the fight to kill Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (H.E.R.O.) through fearmongering and in 2017 he was behind Dan Patrick’s infamous and failed attempt to criminalize transgender people who use public restrooms. When the House didn’t back Hotze’s brand of extremism he wrote, “wouldn’t it be great if we had a Speaker of the House who was as conservative as Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.”

Read more: https://texassignal.com/texas-republicans-must-call-out-donor-steve-hotze-before-someone-gets-hurt/

December 21, 2020

Restrictions on the South Texas Border Were Meant to Protect People From COVID-19. Then the

Restrictions on the South Texas Border Were Meant to Protect People From COVID-19. Then the Handcuffs Came Out.


The day that Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther was arrested for reopening her business in defiance of Texas emergency stay-home orders, Robin Torres sat in a county jail 500 miles away facing the consequences of his own failure to follow such rules.

Luther became a conservative darling this spring for her provocation, spending two days in custody on contempt of court charges. Largely in response to her case, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott eventually prohibited the authorities from jailing anyone for violating the stay-home orders established to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Torres, by contrast, spent five weeks in the Hidalgo County jail after a police officer caught him smoking and drinking a Busch Light beer outside a convenience store just after 11 p.m. on April 3. Arrested on a public intoxication charge and for violation of the stay-home orders, Torres couldn’t afford to pay the $150 he owed on his bond. He wasn’t released until early May, one day after Luther emerged from her brief stint in jail as a celebrity, a notoriety she turned into a run for a Texas Senate seat. Meanwhile, cases like Torres’ have largely gone ignored.

“I thought I would only spend the weekend in jail,” said Torres, now 31, in a recent interview. “I ended up spending more than a month in jail.”

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/restrictions-on-the-south-texas-border-were-meant-to-protect-people-from-covid-19-then-the-handcuffs-came-out

December 21, 2020

The Government Promised to Return Ancestral Hawaiian Land, Then Never Finished the Job

Twenty-five years ago, the state of Hawaii and the U.S. government promised Native Hawaiians to correct a historic wrong.

Public agencies had occupied thousands of acres intended to return Native people to their ancestral lands, paying little or no compensation for decades as the sites were used for military bases, game preserves, schools and other purposes. In 1995, state and federal legislation pledged to provide reparations.

Then-U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said it was “a step toward righting a great wrong against the original people of this land.” Then-Sen. Daniel Akaka, a Native Hawaiian who steered the bill through the Senate, called the legislation “a vindication for Hawaiians who had lost hope that this long-standing issue would ever be resolved.”

But as 2020 draws to a close, Native Hawaiians are still waiting for all of what was promised.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-government-promised-to-return-ancestral-hawaiian-land-then-never-finished-the-job

December 21, 2020

The Battle for Waterloo

The coronavirus crept through Waterloo, Iowa, quietly at first.

In an apartment on the west side of town, a Karenni refugee from Myanmar woke up one morning in April gasping for air. His wife tried to help, but the man, who butchered hog carcasses for a living, was suddenly too weak to get out of bed.

A few miles away, Congolese immigrants, short of breath and struggling with coughing fits, cocooned themselves in blankets and leaned over steaming pots of lemon, ginger and garlic.

Outside the weather was getting warmer, but the streets were eerily empty, almost like when the ocean pulls out all the water before pounding a wave onto the shore. In the lull, Dr. Sharon Duclos, the co-medical director of the Peoples Community Health Clinic, waited anxiously, hoping that the deadly new virus would somehow spare her city.

Then it hit. Overnight, the number of cases in urgent care doubled, then tripled and quadrupled. The clinic’s interpreters, fielding calls in multiple languages, couldn’t keep up. Unable to get through, families drove to the clinic, lining up on the sidewalk as the smell of fast food drifted from the Hardee’s next door.

Read more: https://features.propublica.org/waterloo-meatpacking/as-covid-19-ravaged-this-iowa-city-officials-discovered-meatpacking-executives-were-the-ones-in-charge/

December 21, 2020

SC governor's wife, Peggy McMaster, diagnosed with COVID-19 after White House party

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s wife, Peggy McMaster, was diagnosed with COVID-19 Friday morning, five days after the pair attended a White House Christmas party, according to a statement from the Governor’s Office.

Though his wife tested positive, the governor tested negative, according to the statement.

Peggy McMaster, 73, was tested for the virus Thursday afternoon and was not experiencing any coronavirus symptoms as of Friday.

“I’m happy to say that Peggy is feeling well, isn’t experiencing any symptoms at this time and is in good spirits,” Gov. McMaster, 73, said in a statement. “This shows us, once again, how contagious this virus truly is and how important it is that we follow the advice and recommendations of our public health officials. We are working closely with SCDHEC to ensure that we follow all of the recommended guidelines and that Peggy’s close contacts are notified.”

Read more: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article247954165.html

December 21, 2020

Oracle Lured to Texas by Lower Payrolls and Labor Pool

Oracle Corp.’s surprise decision to shift its headquarters to Texas from California marks a strategic realignment for the Silicon Valley stalwart that’s likely to yield long-term financial benefits such as lower payroll costs and the potential to more easily recruit future employees.

The world’s second-largest software maker said last week that it would no longer designate its longtime base in Redwood City as its main office, ending an era for a company that helped define the technology industry through the 1980s and 90s. The embrace of Texas seems designed to curtail costs over time, in contrast to the San Francisco Bay Area, which has grown increasingly expensive for corporate payrolls and individuals.

Hired, a company that matches companies with tech employees, found in a 2020 analysis that the average tech worker in the Bay Area made $155,000 this year. Average tech salaries in Austin jumped 10% to $137,000.

Oracle has a campus in Austin, opened in 2018 to local fanfare, which it said could eventually house as many as 10,000 workers. Larry Gigerich, a consultant who worked with Oracle in 2013 when it expanded its Texas workforce even before building the campus, said the company was keen to increase its presence there because even then competition for labor had grown intense and expensive in California.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-21/oracle-lured-to-texas-by-lower-payrolls-and-labor-pool

December 21, 2020

Some U.S. Colleges Cut Tuition, Ending Relentless Price Spiral

Hold on to your mortar board: the cost of a U.S. college education has finally stopped going up.

At least that’s the case at a small handful of liberal arts colleges that need to lure students in the middle of a pandemic.

Oberlin College, in Ohio, has cut its tuition by $10,000 for all new students. Nearby Denison University is offering an even better deal for Ohio residents: a $100,000 scholarship over four years. And Davidson College, in North Carolina, has frozen its tuition for the first time in a quarter-century.

The Covid-19 pandemic has upended college life -- and college finances -- for millions. Now, in a sign of what might lie ahead, it also has begun to check the relentless rise in prices that has strained family finances and pushed the nation’s combined student debt to over $1.7 trillion, as admission deans stare down fewer high school graduates.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-18/some-u-s-colleges-cut-tuition-ending-relentless-price-spiral