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Gov. Abbott slammed by trade group head for creating chaos for Texas businesses with mask decision
March 06, 2021
On CNN Saturday, Austin Independent Business Alliance executive director Elizabeth Dixie Patrick slammed Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for his repeal of a statewide mask mandate without consulting health experts, warning that it will cause chaos for Texas businesses.
"We know from medical experts, from public health experts, that the moves like the ones we're talking about here are the things that we did to increase cases," said Patrick. "And an increase in cases means an increase in deaths. And that is just the sad truth of what is happening. So we have already lost more than 405,000 Texans to COVID and everyone one more is too many. I don't see how this move prevents that."
<p>"So it sounds like there is a lot of concern, maybe a little bit of panic going into next Wednesday," said anchor Amara Walker. "What are the conversations sounding like, and what kinds of plans are being made ahead of Wednesday when the mandates are being lifted?"</p><p>"There is definitely a lot of additional anxiety, unnecessary anxiety about what we'll do," said Patrick. "We're lucky here that Austin Public Health and the City of Austin are asking everyone to continue with our vigilance, with masking, distancing and handwashing, and so the messaging from the city is fantastic and it will support local business owners in that way. We are banding together as a community to share ideas, how do we do de-escalation techniques, who can we call if something does get really uncomfortable, what are my rights? So business owners are pulling together like they always do to support each other through this new uncomfortable period."</p><p>
Watch below:
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Republicans who left the party due to Trump aren't returning until Trumpism is dead: report
March 06, 2021
According to a column from longtime political observer Jonathan Chait, conservatives who abandoned the Republican Party as it turned more authoritarian under Donald Trump have no intention of returning just because he lost the 2020 presidential election to now-President Joe Biden.
Trump is currently holed up at Mar-a-Lago considering another presidential run in 2024 while also plotting to put his PAC money behind a slate on candidates who want to carry on his brand of far-right Republicanism, and that has so-called "Never-Trumpers" still working against him long after the election has passed.
According to Chait, it was believed that "the small band of anti-Trump conservative intellectuals and Republican officials would quickly melt away ... when given the chance to support Republicans who believed in traditional Reaganite principles and weren't career criminals, politics would go back to normal, and they would return to the fold." after the election.
But instead they are now working to reclaim their party from Trump's continuing influence.
"Why have a group of conservatives who not many years ago were prepared to happily vote for the likes of Ted Cruz come to embrace a cause that few of them displayed any interest in?" Chait proposed. "For political elites, Trump's unconcealed desire to follow the path of figures like Orban, Erdogan, and Putin became the primary stakes of the era's political conflict. Their activism put them in touch with scholars of authoritarianism and democracy who studied democratic backsliding, and the insights of those thinkers became increasingly evident in the Never Trumpers' polemics."
According to the columnist, these conservative pundits may not have votes in Congress to use to battle back against Trump-allied lawmakers, but they do wield influence with mainstream Republicans -- many of whom want Trump to be a distant memory.
"Anti-Trump conservatives have a second motive for embracing democratization. Many of them hope to reclaim and reform the Republican party as a sane vehicle for center-right governing. They won't have an opportunity to do so until the party realizes Trumpism is a political dead end," he wrote.
"Their influence is not negligible," he continued. "The Never Trumpers can supply a high-profile media voice to credibly articulate nonpartisan reasons to bolster the democratic character of the electoral system."
He then concluded, "Trump was elected because most Republicans refuse to accept the legitimate right of a majority of democratic voters to govern. He launched — or more precisely, escalated — a war against democracy. Everybody can see the stakes. There is no going back to 'normal' now."
You can read the whole piece here.
On Saturday, writing for the Huffington Post, Arthur Delaney and Amanda Terkel documented the false claims made by Republicans as they are "desperately trying to deflect blame" from themselves for the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.
"Some Republicans, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have admitted what actually happened," they wrote. "But others are compiling a growing list of distractions, excuses and alternate theories of the day's events, hoping that as time passes, the public forgets what actually went on."
<p>Among the lies and deflections noted by the analysis: the claim by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that the rioters were not there for "any single reason"; the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republicans-riot-false-accounts/2021/02/28/9230e3b6-784c-11eb-9537-496158cc5fd9_story.html" target="_blank">false claim</a> that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) blocked Capitol Police requests for assistance; the claim from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that this really wasn't any different from Black Lives Matter's "<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials" target="_blank">siege</a>" on the White House last year; and the claim from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that many of the rioters were "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/24/ron-johnson-capitol-riot-disinformation/" target="_blank">agent provocateurs</a>" and "fake" Trump supporters.</p><p>Even some Republicans who initially blamed Trump ultimately tried to walk it back.</p><p>"In January, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Trump "bears responsibility" for the attack. A week later, however, he said he didn't actually believe Trump had 'provoked' the mob of his supporters," said the analysis. "And in an interview that aired a day later, McCarthy found a way to both blame Trump for the riot while not really blaming him at all. 'I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility,' he said."</p><p>Ultimately, ten Republicans in the House and seven in the Senate crossed over to accuse Trump of incitement of insurrection for his promotion of far-right conspiracy theories prior to the Capitol riot, and his <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/report-trump-refused-to-call-off-rioters-during-kevin-mccarthy-phone-call-on-jan-6-100967493506" target="_blank">refusal to call off the rioters</a> until well after the destruction was underway.</p>
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