It finally happened. Governor Whitmer announced that winter contact sports can start in Michigan High Schools. Basketball competition can start on February 8 and competitive cheer and wrestling can start on February 12. A big shout out to all the students, parents, coaches, sports officials, school administrators, college coaches, etc. who applied relentless pressure on the governor. It worked.
Per the NY Times tonight,The House of Representatives exiled Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from congressional committees. The House voted 230 to 199 to remove Ms. Greene from the Education and Budget Committees, with only 11 Republicans joining Democrats to support the move. Long time Republican congressman Fred Upton of Michigan was one of the 11 Repbulicans. The action came after Ms. Greene’s past statements and espousing of QAnon and other conspiracy theories had pushed her party to a political crossroads. In emotional remarks on the House floor, Ms. Greene expressed regret on Thursday for her previous comments and disavowed many of her most outlandish and repugnant statements. Ms. Greene did not apologize over the course of her roughly eight-minute speech. Instead, she portrayed her comments as “words of the past” that “do not represent me,” and she warned that if lawmakers wanted to “crucify” her, it would create a “big problem.” It is a shame the Republican Party didn’t handle this themselves.
Michigan’s Republican Party will be choosing a new chairperson this weekend. It was assumed that former chairperson Ambassador Ron Weiser was going to be the new chairperson. Now current chairperson, Laura Cox has thrown a wrinkle into the election by making allegations against Weiser and throwing her hat into the ring. Weiser denies the allegations as nothing more than a political ploy. It appears to me that the Republican Party is starting to turn against each other at the state and national level as they try to determine their future direction without Donald Trump as the head of the party. More to come on this next week.
Stay safe. Wear your mask. Wash your hands regularly. Social distance. Schedule your vaccine.
Quote of the Day. “What Mat Isbhia has done for our university and for our program, for me in particular, is about as humbling and as sort of tear-jerking as anything has happened to me…,” Michigan State basketball coach, Tom Izzo.
Orchid of the Day: Mat Ishiba for donating $32 million to MSU, primarily in athletics and the school of busines. Ishiba was a walk-on on MSU’s 2000 national championship basketball team.
Onion of the Day: House Republicans for not handling Representative Majorie Greene on their own and forcing the full house to take action. This sets a very bad precident for future issues.
Who will drive these kids to play? Some school districts, one is Warren Consolidated, are not in face-2-face classrooms because of lack of bus-drivers and custodial staff to open the schools.
Thanx for bringing this up as an issue. In my experience coaches are very creative when it comes to getting teams to and from games. This will be figured out one game and one school district at a time.