MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS…
Political Play
The Cowboys beat the Arizona Cardinals Monday night, but the entire game seemed secondary to actions on the sidelines before anyone took the field. After President Trump spent the weekend tweeting his opinions about NFL protests, all eyes went to America’s team—which, going into Monday’s game, was one of only six left in the league that did not include any players who had publicly demonstrated on the field. Reports began to surface before the game about unnamed players who planned to take a knee during the anthem protest, which Cowboys owner Jerry Jones previously spoke out against. But Jones, along with his entire roster, took a knee before the anthem, then collectively rose and stood with interlocked arms as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. Trump, who tweeted over the weekend that “standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable,” seemed to both condemn and praise the Cowboys in two consecutive tweets Monday morning (see above). It’s still unclear if Robert Jeffress, First Baptist Dallas pastor and member of Trump’s evangelical advisory group, has in any way softened his stance after his home team took a knee. Jeffress went on Fox & Friends earlier on Monday to say that players should be “thanking God” that they don’t have to worry about being “shot in the head for taking the knee like they would be in North Korea.”
Harvey Help
As officials squabbled at a Houston City Council meeting on Monday over who should pay for the city’s Hurricane Harvey recovery, Mayor Sylvester Turner turned to the Texas Tribune to offer clarity on his take. Turner has been criticized for proposing a year-long property tax hike to help pay for recovery efforts, but he said that if Governor Greg Abbott had decided to tap Texas’s $10 billion Rainy Day Fund, he wouldn’t be in this situation. “If he told me he was going to tap it, I wouldn’t propose [the property tax hike],” Turner said in an interview with the Texas Tribune. For his part, Abbott has previously said that the state will likely utilize the resource, but has offered no clarification on when or how much aid the state would offer. In a public hearing on Monday, city and state officials butted heads over the proposal, with Senator Paul Bettencourt standing up for residents who he says are already facing significant financial woes. “I don’t think we should be kicking Houstonians while they’re down,” Bettencourt said at the hearing, drawing applause. Houston’s city council will vote on the temporary tax increase next month, which would bring in an additional $50 million and cost the average Houston homeowner $48.