Looks to me like Abbott is trying to shift attention from the disasterous power outages that HE (and the Republicans in the Lege) are directly responsible for:
HE appoints the members of the various boards & commissions that run things; HE directs their actions. The Lege is criminally negligent by not requiring the various power generation companies to weatherize their equipment.
Their whole Libertarian/Randish experiment in deregulating everything they can has been laid bare for the miserable failure that it is, & people have died because of Ideology.
So, here we go again with the ‘opening of the economy’. There will be the usual spikes 10-14 days after this latest round of idiocy begins. I just got my first round of the vaccine last week & won’t get the next one until the end of the month., and they say that won’t be fully effective for another two weeks afterwards.
We shall see what happens, but I don’t expect there to be any more closures, mandates, or other restrictions on Doing Bidness from Austin.
He has already prevented the County Judges from doing anything about it, re: enforcement.
Words fail me to adequately describe this behaviour from the alleged ‘leadership’ in Austin.
‘Depraved Indifference’ is the best I can do.
When I left Tennessee five years ago, there were all kinds of red flags. One of the things I told my family was that the actions of the state and the politicians and what not were going to lead to my death as a gay man married to a trans woman. (It’s complicated!) I just … knew it. I knew if I stayed in that state, at some point in some way it would end my life or endanger my life to the point that I had to run. So I chose to leave.
Texas is seeing exactly the same behaviors now. And the next virus may not be as easy going as COVID is on the grand scheme of things. And this is how they’re going to play it. If you’re a liberal in Texas, these are the red flags you should be watching out for. Your government will kill you.
the problem, of course, is that some people will be idiots – and in places like grocery stores and restaurants bosses will do things like put pressure on their employees to not wear masks, or open back up to maximum capacity – which will put pressure on the food production and warehouse workers, delivery drivers, etc.
a lack of mandate hurts everybody, even those who try to follow the rules themselves. ( or have good workplaces like yours. )
and if more variants arise … they it could everybody everywhere. ( preaching to the choir, i know. )
i guess i can’t figure out what abbott really gets from this. maybe he’s just hoping for more bailouts by liberal evildoers like aoc?
of course, texas already gets more money from the federal government than it pays in taxes by around $1,280 per person so… it really is baffling.
Didn’t say it was, just sayin’ the chances of people from TX being idiots (if by which we mean vote for Republicans, which seems like a community-supported definition on bb these days I’d say) is better odds than red/black or even/odd on the roulette table. Even a European roulette table!
Yeah, obviously it would be much better if the idiot governor didn’t do this. Thousands of people will die because of this mandate. I was just pointing out that much of the state isn’t comprised of idiots, so the effects won’t be as bad as if we all listened to Abbott.
The hardest thing I expect is that enforcement often falls to minimum wage workers. For instance, the last time I went to the grocery store there were a few people with their masks on their chins. That behavior will definitely become more common now even when the store requires a mask. This puts someone lightly trained in working at a grocery in the position of having to force customers to follow public health policy. Its a shit position to put people in even if they were trained for it.
Fuck Abbott and hopefully Texans can prove those rugged individualist claims true by all refusing to listen to the governor on this
But if you’re from Texas , and you’re in a big city, it’s clear as day that your government is going to get you killed someday. Or they at least won’t care about it. And that’s problematic. You’ve had floods. You’ve had ice storms. You’ve had power outages and people dying of cold. Your governor’s now signing up for plagues. Even the Pharoah in Egypt got a clue at SOME point.
You seem to be implying “any intelligent, progressive Texans ought to get a clue and move the hell out of the state.”
I think the better approach for everyone is “intelligent, progressive Texans should continue to work toward changing the government in their state.”
Texas is getting bluer by the year thanks to the hard work of people who decided not to cut and run. Their elected officials aren’t all bad either. Yes they still have people like Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz, but they also have people like Representative Al Green:
More like, you’re in a race that you’re getting closer to winning, but every time you get close, they change the rules to put you further and further behind, and every few races they ask you to play russian roulette.
I’m not saying cut and run. I’m saying that they’re risking your life and keep turning up the heat on the frog. The new voting suppression that’s going to pass there and get upheld by the current supreme court will keep that “turning blue” thing for another few decades.
And no, absolutely not everyone is bad, and I do value the work people are doing. But I just hope you keep an eye on the situation there. You just came out of an energy crisis that is going to cost citizens billions, and are going into a ramped up pandemic where nobody is responsible for what happens to you. God help what happens next.
How about going the other direction and making it legal to shoot anyone who approaches within six feet without a mask in self defense? Texas is big on that whole “stand your ground” thing, right?
Not a Texan, but isn’t the momentum going to be warp speed into complete [simulation of] normalcy for all businesses?
The governor himself has declared “mission accomplished” over covid. Any business who now tries to enforce masks will be hit anew with boycotts, lawsuits, video posts of confrontations. Any mask-wearing individual (patron or employee) will face ridicule. The peer pressure is going to be enormous. There are Texans cancelling scheduled vaccine appointments because the crisis is “over.”
I do not foresee you being able to patronize many businesses.
