Texas progressives: Coronavirus, week 9

In yet another example of how philosophy is very much a real-world discipline, a philosopher of science talks about how the philosophical preconceptions behind various theories of pandemic modeling can affect their applicability to the real world, and thus their usefulness. Good thoughts, especially the idea that "pandemics are global but prediction is local," as shown by the response clusterfuck here in Merika.

Meanwhile, a Johns Hopkins expert said last Friday that NO STATE fully met the "reopen" criteria. Maybe that's why CDC folks below the Dr. Redfield level expect a spike in deaths because of "reopening" too soon.

Speaking of? Meet the four horsemen of the Trump coronavirus apocalypse. Tim Dickinson includes Redfield as well as, of course, Trump himself.

Coronavirus truth

Orac has another callout of antivaxxers as coronavirus conspiracy theorists. He then looks in more detail at Judy Mikovits, who goes a whole new level of nutbar; she claims not only glyphosate is to blame (nutty enough) but plutonium from satellites.

Coronavirus Texas

Fuck Lying Shelley Luther, Fuck Greg Abbott, Fuck Ted Cruz, Fuck Briscoe Cain, and speaking of that, apparently fuck ConservaDem Kim Ogg. That got it covered? Not quite. Texas Monthly reports she'd qualified for a Paycheck Protection Plan loan before she stepped into Judge Eric Moye's courtroom. She's also selfish and a hypocrite in other ways. (Here's the info on her LLC-incorporated business. The Lewisville residence at which it's located? Valued at a cool $1.5 million. Shelley herself owns other houses and properties. Suburban slumlord? A house, it seems, plus a mother-in-law cottage, or something, on the same site, both in Pilot Point. Combined value? $400K.)

Speaking of? Mark Cuban went undercover and found that about NO DALLAS BUSINESSES were following 100 percent of Strangeabbott's reopening protocols. Texas is gonna be like Trump nationally; it will waste the "safety time" it had from the shelter orders and have this blow up.

Dos Centavos tells us about his hometown's battle with COVID-19, and whose experience with Greg Abbott isn't much different than that of Big City leaders.

Off the Kuff adds Rep. Chip Roy to the active roster of death squad enthusiasts.

Coronavirus has hit a beef plant in Amarillo (and another, nearby in the Panhandle) and another in Corpus. And Tyson's chicken plant in Center, where am employee lost a finger several years ago, which along with other things, led to some federal fines. (Things have to be BAD in the meat world for the feds to fine you.) In Dallas, Quality Sausage allegedly bought off employees to keep working despite COVID and, reportedly, COVID deaths.

TEA, per a letter to school districts suggesting an early start for the 2020-21 school year, is clearly expecting new rounds of disruptions and shutdowns.

Scott Braddock chronicles Greg Abbott's various power moves during the crisis. Lisa Gray interviewed Braddock about the "full-on culture war" that Abbott and others are leading over COVID-19. Paul Basaldua shows how recovered COVID-19 patients can help others by donating their plasma. Dan Solomon hands out some awards for coronavirus performance.

DosCentavos reminds us that Texans are modeling their leaders' behaviors as Texas continues to reopen amid COVID19.

Coronavirus sports

Texas Monthly notes the NFL may be trying to will a 2020 season into existence.

Over in the NBA world, on the other hand, Commish Adam Silver told players last week that the 2020-21 season could start as late as December and even then, start without fans. 

Coronavirus national

Trump is starting to lose his electoral grasp on old white voters, a key part of his constituency. That said, it's "funny," you Democrats, that only 5 percentage points more of Merika trusts Biden to protect Social Security than Trump. Given Biden's past record, Merika is right to distrust him, too.

Schadenfreude is indeed a biatch. Wisconsin wingnuts who attended a protest in Madison fighting against shelter-in-place orders may have contaminated themselves.

Is Trump scaling back his coronavirus focus not because he's been an idiot at the podium, but because it's hitting black folks and other minorities far worse than whites?

I've already called out "horseshoe theory" on coronavirus conspiracy thinking. Antivaxxers are doing nothing but proving me true. See the Orac link above as well.

Trump wants to ramp up his political rallies in June as part of pretending the new normal can be the old normal. Given red states' hurry to "reopen," we're going to see a lot of "schadenfreude" rallies like the "reopen Wisconsin" one above.

Also at that same link? Toady Birx claims the CDC's tracking estimates are inflating death counts. Since in our federal US system, death counts come from state health agencies, as on the excellent Worldometers site, this can only be considered a lie.