Luv Ya Blue

The 7:30 am hour of Today started with Ann-Margaret singing “Bye Bye Birdie” from the 1963 flick Bye Bye Birdie. OH, NO! That was my reaction thinking I was fixing to hear the worst news about the 82-year-old actress and one of my favorites.  Nope! It was just a funny take on Twitter losing the birdie. Whew!

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Let’s see. Arsehole Gov. Greg Abbott is ordering the DPS to toss migrant babies into the Rio Grande. The GOP continues to plot against democracy. I saw the Click2news weather forecast this morning for the next ten days and it is 98 degrees for every day. Hikers in the southwest are keeling over and dying in the heatwave. According to H-Town Next Door, folks are being robbed at gunpoint after they leave their bank.

Here locally, we have a key three-game series with the AL West first place Rangers starting tonight. The last thing I want to worry about is the Tennessee Titans announcing that they will play a couple of games this season wearing the Luv Ya Blue gear.  See the featured photo.

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This is a wild story from CBS, but it pretty much captures the lawlessness created by Donald Trump. See this:

A Black man who says he was elected mayor of a rural Alabama town but has been kept from taking office by White leaders of the town has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Patrick Braxton, 57, is one of several plaintiffs named in Braxton et al v. Stokes et al. The other plaintiffs — James Ballard, Barbara Patrick, Janice Quarles and Wanda Scott — are people that Braxton hoped to name to the city council of Newburn after he was elected to office in 2020. However, Braxton said that the “minority White residents of (Newburn), long accustomed to exercising total control over the government, refused to accept this outcome.” Haywood Stokes III, the acting mayor of Newburn, instead allegedly worked with acting town council members to hold a special election where he was re-appointed to the mayoral seat and keeping Braxton from taking office and carrying out mayoral duties. 

Braxton said in the lawsuit, which CBS News reviewed, that Newbern had not held an election “for decades.” Instead, “the office of mayor was ‘inherited’ by a hand-picked successor,” and that mayor then chose town council members, again without an election. All prior mayors have been White residents, the lawsuit said, even though about 85% of Newbern’s population is Black. Only one Black person has ever served on the town council. 

Braxton, a volunteer firefighter and emergency responder, decided to run for mayor in 2020 because he “had concerns that the Town Council and Mayor were not responding to the needs of the majority Black community,” particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic. When he approached Stokes for information about running for mayor, Stokes allegedly gave Braxton “wrong information about how to qualify” for the election, and did not provide public notice to residents about the election. Despite these hurdles, Braxton allegedly gave then-city clerk Lynn Williams his statement of candidacy and qualifying money order. 

Braxton was allegedly the only person who qualified for the position of mayor, according to the lawsuit. Stokes “did not bother to qualify as a candidate,” the lawsuit said, even though he knew Braxton was planning to run. No candidates qualified for town council positions, either. 

Braxton was elected mayor by default, making him the first Black mayor of Newbern in the 165 years since the town was founded. 

Braxton was informed by county probate Judge Arthur Crawford that because no one had qualified or been elected to town council positions, he could appoint people to the positions, according to the lawsuit. This was in line with previous mayoral administrations, who also appointed council members. Braxton asked both Black and White residents to serve, but no White residents agreed to join his council, according to the lawsuit. 

Meanwhile, in August 2020, just weeks after his election, Stokes and his council members Gary Broussard, Jesse Donald Leverett, Voncille Brown Thomas and Willie Richard Tucker allegedly “met in secret to adopt a ‘special’ election ordinance.” Notice of the meeting was not published, and the group set a special election for Oct. 6, 2020. 

No notice of that election was ever published, according to the lawsuit. Because the election was not publicized, only Stokes and his council members qualified. They then “effectively reappointed themselves” to their positions, Braxton alleged, and “unlawfully assumed their new terms” and were sworn in in November, even as Braxton assembled his own town council. 

Here is the entire read: Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position – CBS News.

Then there is the GOP Alabama legislature that just defied the U.S. Supreme Court on congressional redistricting. F_ck a second Africa American congressional district they said. Hopefully a federal court will draw the new map.  That is the GOP these days. Corrupt.

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I watched Team USA Friday night.  They were dominant.

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Ten days ago, I mentioned the 2024 MLB schedules that were released and said this about the Astros:

I only counted 79 home games instead of the usual 81. Maybe the 2 games in Mexico City are considered home games. I hope they only charge us for 79 games on our season ticket package. I will stay tuned.

I based this on the printed schedule that was in the hard copy of the Chron. This past weekend, I went to the Astros website and looked at the 2024 schedule and it turns out the two games in Mexico City against the Rockies next April are considered homes games for the Rockies.  The two games next June against the Rockies will be played at The Yard.  The Chron hard copy had those two games being played in Denver. Oops. The reason I noticed is if those two June games had been played in Denver, it would have been at the start of a 12-game roadie which is unusual. We will play 81 regular season games at The Yard in 2024.

We have not played at The Yard since the Sunday before the All Star break. We went 6-3 on the roadie and are three games behind the Rangers. We host the Rangers for three starting this evening. 

Let’s hope Yordan Alvarez is activated for the series.