Tag: Republican denial of science

‘Horrifying’: Sen. Cruz Flew Without Mask From Houston To Dallas

Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has recently encouraged mask wearing in response to the coronavirus pandemic, some far-right Republicans are still reluctant to wear face masks in public. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, according to AmericaBlog reporter John Aravosis, wasn’t wearing a mask at all during an American Airlines flight from Houston to Dallas on Sunday, July 12 — which is a violation of the airline’s rules.

Aravosis tweeted, “I just confirmed that Ted Cruz went the entire one-hour-eight-minute flight from Houston to Dallas and never put on his mask. So he wasn’t just drinking coffee for a minute.”

Cruz’ defenders have argued that the senator was photographed on the flight when he was drinking coffee. But Twitter user @hossehenad explained, “For those trying to argue that he was drinking, it’s not hard to have a mask on and undo one side to take a sip then put it back on. Most people take their time drinking coffee.” Continue reading.

Texas GOP Sues Houston To Hold Convention In Virus Hotspot

The Texas Republican Party was all set to hold a 6,000-person convention in Houston this next week even though the city is located in Harris County, the Texas county with the highest overall number of coronavirus cases. But because the county has averaged around 950 new COVID-19 cases each day over the last week, Houston’s Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner effectively canceled the event on July 8.

But now the Texas GOP is suing for the right to hold the event anyway as the convention’s preliminary meetings were set to start next Monday. This last Thursday, a district court judge rejected the state GOP’s request, so now the state GOP has appealed to the Texas State Supreme Court which will hear arguments on Saturday.

The state GOP’s argument is essentially that Turner allowed thousands of racial justice protesters to congregate in the city over the last month, so why not a bunch of Republicans? Continue reading.