Texas progressives bring back coronavirus news, Week 14

Another fun week in the world of politics, Texana, rising Texas coronavirus cases and more.

Ahh, yes ... coronavirus.

With that, after thinking I was over with a separate Texas Progressives pullout for coronavirus, it turns out that Greg Abbott's refusal to listen to precautionary, prudent medical advice, plus his "legal loopholes overriding of local governments' mask rules authority, has led us to a point of a COVID surge, which is largely demonstrated in other "red" states as well.

Coronavirus Texas

#Schadenfreude is a #coronavirus bitch. Two months ago, Texas and other states were quarantining travelers from the greater New York City area. Now, the three states of the Tri-State are alarmed enough to quarantine Texans (and denizens of several other, generally "red," states.)

On top of that? The EU is likely to ban travel from the US, period.

Meanwhile, as Texas coronavirus cases swell and Abbott has blood on his hands, Trump has pushed through with cutting federal money and aid for testing nationwide, including several sites in Texas. Strangebbott, despite bipartisan pleading with Trump across the state, said Texas would be OK.

And as of last Friday, Strangeabbott has officially backtracked on Reopen Texas. Bars closed, restaurants back to 50 percent capacity. And banned outdoor gatherings of more than 100 unless explicitly approved by government officials.

Hindsight, like schadenfreude, is a bitch. And, given that many medical experts and local government leaders were shouting in Abbott's ears a month ago, his "hindsight" is what I'd call "poor me."

Schadenfreude is a bitch indeed even within the Texas GOP. The Monthly notes the death from COVID of Kaufman County GOP official Peter Baker throws into stark relief the GOP's still-insistent plans on having an in-person state convention in Houston. (As of last Saturday, that is still on!) Adding to the schadenfreude angle? Baker was a COVID wingnut, pooh-poohing its severity — like many other Texas Republicans.

In light of all of this, Trump's HHS caved and will keep open five of the seven federal-funded test sights it had planned to close.

Shock me that Gohmert Pyle continues to be an idiot on this issue.


Coronavirus national

Could we, instead of having a check-mark, but not V, recovery, have an inverse check mark further downturn? Annie Lowery at the Atlantic says we might not have an inverse check mark, but that a regular checkmark might be so slow in growing we have something halfway like a second Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office says that we could have a full lost decade ahead. Wunderbar. Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden has anything to offer to deal with this. Libertarianism doesn't. And, the Green Party still has a lot of people inside the party hating its nominee. Beyond the conspiracy theory hatred, a lot of Greens hate anything that comes close to ecosocialism even as it's clear capitalism won't save us. One of the links within the piece explains how this is increasing income inequality, which is then in turn contributing to the problem. Again, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and a sizeable chunk within the GP have nothing to deal with this.

Toady Fauci was a little less toadyish when speaking to the House last week, partially blowing the whistle on what lead to details on why Trump killed a coronavirus research grant.

Team Trump is getting more panicky. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said "the window is closing" on the attempt to control COVID.At the same time, he pushed back on the idea that too many states had reopened too quickly, despite good medical evidence he's wrong.

"Reopen" protestor schadenfreude continues to happen. And the schad-infected, at least in this case, continue to be selfish dicks.

As tens of thousands of people in the country continue to struggle with this respiratory virus, the Fed is "doing its part," buying up stock of Big Tobacco and Big Oil as part of its "stimulus" or whatever.

In Week 11 of the coronavirus roundup, I noted churches as a high-risk area. Politico reports now on the issue of "super-spreader churches." Trump nationally, and Abbott in Tex-ass, continue to pander to the Religious Right on this issue.

Earlier this week, I noted that summer weather doesn't have appeared to tamped down COVID, and wondered if it was lurking in air conditioning.


Coronavirus global

South Korea was one of the best countries in the world at controlling COVID infections. But local and national leaders admit that, sociologically, the new normal cannot be the old normal.