Motley News

Marvin Rodriguez (R)

Nope. The title of this post does not have a typo or any error at all. It is 100% correct. According to the Kansas City Star:

The chairman of the Riley County Commissioners suggested this week that the global coronavirus pandemic is not a problem locally because unlike in Italy, there are not a lot of Chinese people living in central Kansas, according to two other officials who attended the meeting Wednesday night.

Usha Reddi, the mayor of Manhattan, Kansas, went to the meeting … [and] what she heard from the chairman, Republican Marvin Rodriguez, was this: “I’m paraphrasing, but he said we don’t have a problem here because Italy has a lot of Chinese people, and we don’t have that problem here.”

Reached by phone, Rodriguez told The Star Editorial Board, “I didn’t necessarily say it like that.” So how did he say it? “Italy has a problem with its health department, first. It’s health (sic) for everybody. I have a friend in the Navy, and he said in that area” of Northern Italy where that country’s first cases were reported, “there’s a garment industry and a lot of Chinese. If we were like Italy, we’d have it already.”

Rodriguez’s explanation really is not much better than what Usha Reddi is saying he said. She just put it in more direct terms.

I weep for our future.