Maryland has a Republican Governor by the name of Larry Hogan.

Hogan told Robert Costa of the Washington Post today that he put his state’s Covid-19 testing supplies in an undisclosed location to hide them from the federal government.

And by the federal government, he means Donald Trump.

Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told the Washington Post’s Robert Costa on Thursday that he has had to hide COVID-19 testing kits to make sure President Donald Trump doesn’t commandeer them.

During an interview with Costa, Hogan explained how he worked to smuggle testing kits in from South Korea in a complicated process that took over three weeks to pull off.

Hogan said that he even called in the Maryland National Guard to oversee the delivery of the shipment of the testing kits as they arrived at BWI.

And now they are at an undisclosed location being guarded by the state police and the Maryland National Guard.

Remind me who the enemy is?

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Y’all, shame on you.  Shame on you for making fun of Mike Pence for going into the Mayo Clinic without a mask because he wanted “to look people in the eye.”

Yeah, well, that didn’t work.  You don’t put masks over your eyes, unless he accidentally ordered a Lone Ranger mask.  Which, come to think of it, is within the realm of possibility.

So, when his excuse didn’t fly, they called in the calvary.  Mother. They called Mother. For the few deaf, dumb, and blind who are Juanita fans, Mike Pence calls his wife “Mother,” which is way kinkier than I wish to ponder on.

Mother says.

He didn’t know. I mean, he couldn’t tell from everybody else wearing a mask.

Her story is that he didn’t know about it. His story is that he’s a bumbling fool.

The Mayo Clinic also has a story.

The real scary part about this is that these two actually had children.

Okay, it’s time to panic.

Cooper’s Barbecue says “due to production storages” they are having to raise the price of their brisket box from $95 to 120.

This is some serious stuff, y’all.

Riots have started in Texas before now over barbecue shortages.

For you people from foreign states, a Cooper’s brisket (my personal favorite brisket) will serve 2 people for 8 – 10 days.

And when they say any kinda of shortage – people in Texas go buy all the toilet paper.  I’m warning ya.

Dick Wilkerson, former head of Michelin’s North America unit and a man with deep pockets, has been a longtime supporter of Senator Lindsey Graham.  He even had a major leadership role in Graham’s silly and short-lived presidential try.

That’s all changed.

He’s supporting Democrat Jaime Harrison.

Jaime Harrison

“Jaime is the perfect candidate to bring together South Carolinians from all walks of life,” he said. “I am proud to endorse Jaime today, and I know first hand he is the change South Carolina needs.”

The seat is rated safely R.  You know, who’s to say the word “safely” in today’s world?  I don’t think diddly squat is safely now days.

This is a big damn deal, y’all.

Go to Act Blue and give Jaime $5 today.  Just type his name in the search bar at the top of the page. Your $5 says that you’re on board.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Sorry to disappear on you guys.  I just spent 2 hours and 8 minutes on the phone with AT&T.  The nicest woman helped me but their computer system sucks.  We finally got things figured out.

And then I spent and hour and 18 minutes (don’t you love how your phone keeps count?) with the CAD in my county.  For some reason they gave me the over 65 on my house but not the homestead.  They are claiming I never filed for my homestead. I did. Think of it this way: if I didn’t file for my homestead, why did I get the over 65 exemption?  They couldn’t figure that out either.

I haven’t checked the news and haven’t even read all my email, but I thought you’d enjoy this heads up from Deb T.

The White House is selling a Covid-19 Historic Moments in History Medal.

Would I lie?

Now, aren’t you feeling all better now?

Greg Abbott is a small government, local control, free trader.  Until he’s not.  Abbott is the worst kind of politician, one who doesn’t really believe in anything but his own power, who shifts his ideology to fit the situation that always advantages himself and his largest donors.  Texas has always been very independent where local control has been sacrosanct, and the governor’s office was designed to be a weak position.  No more.  It started under Rick Perry, but Abbott put consolidation of power on steroids aided by a state house full of ideologues who are either stupid, corrupt, or likely both.

Abbott has seized power away from municipalities and counties on everything from oil and gas development to environmental regulation to even trimming trees.  In good times the consolidation of broad local authority to a central point is bad policy.  The US Constitution recognized the role of the states in limiting the power of the federal government.  Abbott and Perry quoted that loudly and often with Barack Obama occupied the White House.  No more.  Now, Abbott cherry picks what he wants to control, like tree removals for some weird personal reason, and has done so again by abruptly ordering the reopening of thousands of businesses in Texas over the orders of municipal and county authorities all over the state.

What Abbott is doing is stupid; it’s not only stupid, he’s also doing it for precisely the wrong reasons.  He’s not rushing to reopen the state’s businesses because he believes it’s the right thing to do, he’s doing it to kick hundreds of thousands of workers off of state unemployment rolls.  The Texas Workforce Commission has already announced that if a business reopens and employees do not work ALL of the hours required by that business, the employees lose their unemployment benefits. Cisco Gamez, a Texas Workforce Commission spokesman even said that if an employee doesn’t feel safe working, they must refer their concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, governed by the US Labor Department currently run by…wait for it…Eugene Scalia.  Yes, that Scalia, the son of Antonin Scalia.  The younger Scalia who’s made his career and is well known for undoing worker and safety regulations, was appointed by Trump to head the agency tasked with protecting workers’ rights (Yes, it’s a drinking game.)  Since Gamez’s statement, the Texas Workforce Commission “clarified” the policy that the state “may” allow some benefits to survive if a worker doesn’t feel safe to go to work.

The dangerous feature of Abbott’s idiotic orders is that he’s going to damage the programs that adults, like Lina Hidalgo and Sylvester Turner, have been implementing round the clock to protect those in Harris County.  The result is reduced cases here, but according to latest data from Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking program, Harris County new cases are still growing at an average weekly rate of 13%, which is low compared to other counties like Tarrant County, location of Fort Worth.  That city is governed by Trump supporter Betsy Price, who has already ordered that churches can begin holding services and bars and restaurants can open.  Their case growth rate? 51% this week.  That’s right, THREE times that of Harris County.  And those are just the cases we know about.

Abbott, like Trump, is literally getting people killed.  And he’s covering it up.  To keep the numbers low, I’m convinced Abbott is dragging his feet on broad distribution of testing.  Like Trump, Abbott keeps promising millions of tests that never materialize.  Texas has tested just over 200,000 people or less than 1% of the population.  Every medical expert advises not to reopen businesses and public buildings until testing and contact tracing is massive.  Abbot clearly doesn’t want that because then it would be hard to justify what he’s doing right now.

Abbott’s plan is dangerous.  Overruling local officials who are actually listening to medical experts is nothing short of gross negligence.