7 Things: Biden gets the nod, Alabama’s coronavirus response touted, Jones sounds like he wants to join ‘The Squad’ and more …

7. CDC: Get your flu shot

• This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is stressing how important it is to get the flu vaccine, saying “this fall will be more important than ever, not only to reduce your risk from flu but also to help conserve potentially scarce health care resources.”
• The CDC is also expecting record flu vaccines to be administered. During the 2019-2020 flu season, a record 175 million vaccines were produced, but this year it’s expected that there could be 194-198 million issued.

6. Biden could get people to come out and vote

• New poll data released by USC Dornsife shows that 52% of voters that sat out in 2016 have decided to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden, 32% will vote for President Donald Trump and 16% will for another candidate.
• Of those who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, 92% will be voting for Biden, 4% for Trump and 4% for another candidate. Of those who voted for Trump in 2016, 88% will vote for Trump again, 9% will vote for Biden and 4% will vote third party.

5. Religious leaders want the Madison County Courthouse Confederate monument removed

• In downtown Huntsville, pastors from three different churches gathered outside the Madison County Courthouse calling for the removal of the Confederate monument, with Union Hill Primitive Baptist Church Pastor Oscar Montgomery saying that commissioners “have the moral obligation to act” on this issue. He added that “to take refuge behind the façade of legality is both morally and economically irresponsible.”
• Madison County Commission Chair Dale Strong has said that the “process is moving forward to relocate” the monument and they’re currently “working through legal and waiver process,” but many have already voiced their frustration with the length of the legal process.

4. Doug Jones believes it’s important to hear the socialist voices of the party

• While on PBS News Hour, U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) discussed the Democratic National Convention, but also mentioned that in Alabama “people are very excited about Kamala being on the ticket” when talking about former Vice President Joe Biden’s candidacy.
• When asked about socialist voices being heard at the DNC, such as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jones said that “the left of the party is always an issue – they try to make it an issue,” but also said that they’re “voices who need to be heard.” He then brought up QAnon members on the Republican side, adding that people shouldn’t “be criticizing the voices on the left of the Democrat Party … if they’re not going to criticize the racist comments” from candidates who support QAnon.

3. Trump administration voicing support for Alabama

• A new summary released by the Trump administration shows “the strong State-Federal partnership with Governor Kay Ivey” as helping the coronavirus response, detailing the support the federal government has given to the state through masks and doses of remdesivir.
• The federal government has also sent 1.3 million N95 masks, 2.6 million surgical masks, 120,000 face shields, 660,000 surgical gowns, 750,000 medical gloves to the state and 15,520 vials of remdesivir.

2. 75,000 tests and less than 1% positive

• It has been a really good two-week period for the state of Alabama when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus, and the lastest results from Alabama’s campus reentry initiative showing a very small number of cases of the virus amongst college students.
• Bob Phillips, executive director of GuideSafe Entry Testing, laid out the results from the program’s 13 testing sites and out-of-state mail-in tests that show encouraging results. He advised, “As of this morning, we’ve tested approximately 75,000 individuals around the state, and I believe our prevalence rate is about 0.75% positive. So, of those 75,000, less than 1% have come back positive in our reporting.”

1. Biden accepts the nomination

• Last night at the Democratic National Convention, former Vice President Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election. He managed to not make any gaffes, wow-ing his base in the American media by stringing together all of his words into actual sentences and not embarrassing himself. The media called it inspiring, although it was clearly a pretty bleak look at the country.
• Biden’s goal was to set himself apart from the current President of the United States, and he did this by lying about President Trump’s “very fine people” comment about Charlottesville while painting himself as a decent man, promising to raise taxes while declaring he will help the economy recover, decrying Trump as a power-hungry madman while pushing for an undoable national mask mandate, and assuring America that there is “no miracle” coming on the coronavirus while American scientists continue to rush towards a vaccine.