Texas Progressives: Coronavirus, week 12

Not quite yet on stopping the bifurcated Texas Progressives roundup, as we still don't know how well, or poorly, Gov. Strangeabbott's rushed "reopening" will go and other things even as Strangeabbott plays Overton Window with some of this. Among what we do know about COVID is that it's 4x as fatal or more as "just the flu."


Metromess

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins dishes to the Texas Observer about COVID, battling Strangeabbott, etc. He makes Strangeabbott's Stay Safe Business designation sound twice as silly as FDR's Blue Eagle from the NRA. (Not THAT NRA.)  Too bad there's no dish on his recent battling with Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price.


Texas

The COVID layoff world is hitting smaller food banks especially hard.

Strangeabbott did a Friday night news dump on sports. After originally saying that pro sports could open, but fanless, on Monday, June 1, on Friday, May 22, he changed that to 25 percent fans and Friday, May 29, for the start date. And dumped the announcement without heralding it.

El Paso County said it wasn't sure it was ready — psychologically as much as anything — to go to Strangebbott's next phase of "reopening," even after he granted a one-week delay. The city's mayor was more OK, and it doesn't matter, because "states rights, but not local rights" Strangeabbott said "tough shit."

The Panhandle remains the state's hot spot, primarily because of unsanitary meatpackers. And that leads us to ...


National

Just as COVID hit meatpackers a month or so ago with a vengeance, it's now hitting fruit and vegetable truck farming with a vengeance, whose harvesting is also largely done by immigrants. Workers who do test sick are quarantined without pay, which means they'll resist being tested. Also, let's not forget the word "migrant" that usually occurs before "farm workers." As they get sick, they will spread it.

Just when I thought Ted Rall couldn't get more self-centered, he does.

World

Privilege with COVID is not just an American thing. To give you a nickel translation of this Spanish newspaper piece, a Belgian prince went to Cordoba, Spain, violated social distancing, held a party celebrating that ... and schadenfreude is a bitch because he got it.

How coronavirus has affected the world's economy, in a series of charts.

Some British scientists, like some American ones at this time, are political toadies.

Canada has botched its COVID response, almost as badly as the US. And, a fair chunk of it, argues MacLean's, is the personal fault of Justin Trudeau. The opinion piece essentially argues that he's acting like the quintessential neoliberal Liberal Party leader that he is. If only Tom Mulcair hadn't wrecked the NDP. And Jagmeet Singh proved inept at reviving it.


Week 1 is here and week 2 is here. Week 3 is here and week 4, here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6. Here's Week 7. And, looking past this? Weeks 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. And, after a three-week hiatus, but necessitated, week 14.