Yesterday, the House passed, with a wide bipartisan margin, an increase in relief payments from an anemic $600 to a measly $2,000.  Let’s be clear – $2,000 is a pimple on the ass of the problem of millions of Americans who have been suffering for almost a year, while other countries have paid up to 90% of lost wages and revenues for small businesses.  Just now, Chuck Schumer made a motion on the Senate floor for unanimous consent to take up the House bill to increase the payments.  Other Republicans have said they would join the Dems in that effort. Even Trump is demanding it.  The roadblock?  Again?  Moscow Mitch.  He objected to the motion, and is blocking the measure.

So, if you’re evicted or lose your house, or can’t put food on the table, be sure to send a thank you note to Mitch McConnell.

Written by Elizabeth Moon.

As of today COVID-19 deaths in the United States exceeded a third of a million, at 334,000.  I follow the Johns Hopkins site, because it reaches down to county level with more information than most, and it gives the cases in both absolute case numbers, and numbers per 100,000, which allows comparison between counties with fewer than 100,000 population and the ones much more populous.   I always look at my home county (Hidalgo) because…well…it was home.  I was born in the county hospital in Edinburg and grew up in McAllen, before heading off to Houston for college, then the D.C. area for the Marines, and then back to Texas in Austin, San Antonio, and McAllen (again, yes) before landing where we are now.

So here’s what COVID-19 looks like in my home part of the state…Corpus to Laredo and points south.   I’ll start at Laredo and work down the Rio Grande to Brownsville then start on the second tier counties, and so on.   And I’ll point out an anomaly that I don’t recall seeing before today.  Today Texas’ overall case fatality rate is 1.59

Webb (Laredo) *  Case fatality rate 1.72   Poverty rate 25.67% 525 staffed hospital beds, 65 ICU beds.

Zapata    Case fatality rate 0.99   Poverty rate 31.5%    0 staffed hospital beds or ICU beds

Starr *   Case fatality rate 3.36   Poverty rate 33%  48 staffed hospital beds, 8 ICU beds

Hidalgo*    Case fatality rate 4.38  Poverty rate 30%  1185 staffed beds, 260 ICU beds

Cameron*   Case fatality rate 4.03  Poverty rate 27.78%  1177 staffed hospital beds, 105 ICU beds

Willacy  (north of Cameron)  Case fatality rate 3.71  Poverty rate 29.2%  0 hospital or ICU beds

Kenedy  (north of Willacy)  Case fatality rate 9.52   Poverty rate 10.6%  0 hospital or ICU beds

Brooks (west of Willacy, north of Hidalgo)  Case fatality rate 4.62   Poverty rate 30.4%  0 hospital or ICU beds

Jim Hogg (west of Brooks, east of Zapata) Case fatality rate 3.24  Poverty rate 24.9%    0 hospital or ICU beds

Duval (east of Webb, north of Jim Hogg )  Case fatality rate 3.31  Poverty rate23.6%   0 hospital/ICU beds

Jim Wells* (east of Duval)  Case fatality rate 2.38  Poverty rate 20.76%,  72 staffed hospital beds, 8 ICU beds

Kleberg* (east of Jim Wells)  Case fatality rate  3.51  Poverty rate 23.2%  50 staffed beds, 10 ICU beds

Nueces* (Corpus Christi)  Case fatality rate 1.89   Poverty rate 16%  1024 staffed beds, 123 ICU beds

Counties with an * had the state’s stats listed: confirmed cases, fatalities, case-fatality rate.   Otherwise the state stats were zeroed out.   Some also had dubious results for “population aged 65+” with a zero there but the insurance graph showing % of those over 65 with the various kinds of medical insurance.

The county I live in now has a case-fatality rate of 0.97, much lower poverty level…it’s now got several bedroom communities of tech people working in or on this side of Austin.  Over 800 staffed beds, 157 ICU beds.  Most people have health insurance.

The disparity in medical outcomes is matched by the disparity in available medical care, food security, and housing security.   My home county’s case fatality rate of 4.38 means someone who contracts COVID there is more than four times as likely to die of it than someone where I live now.    Texas’ overall case-fatality rate is not an ideal–but the offhand acceptance of much higher death rates in some counties is unacceptable…they’re people, not “just elders and Hispanics.”    You know that already, but I’ve been stewing about this for months.

Elizabeth

Short report from Glen:

All are getting experience in field for a few days and learning how canvasses are being run here until Jan 1 when each team will take over a canvass launch center.   They’ll supervise all the local volunteers through Election Day.

Please meet a few of our kids: From top to bottom Jacob Canyon, Joe Cascino in red, Sam Dennehy, and Jordan Villarreal.

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More soon ….

Brought to you by Nick Carraway.

King Midas is a cautionary tale from Greek mythology. It is something uniquely American that the “Midas touch” is considered to be something desired. Trump has been said to have the Midas touch, but maybe he has the Sterquilinus touch. That would be the Roman God of poop. Everything he touches turns to excrement. 

In the latest tale we get the associated story of the relief bill and spending bill that he was threatening to pocket veto. The strategy made no sense politically as it threatened to torpedo the GOP’s chance to win the run off elections in Georgia and just pissed off a majority of the country. One might imagine Wile E. Coyote blowing himself up to catch the road runner.

Trump reversed course and signed the bill yesterday but now is insisting Congress must go back and rework the deal. No one bothered to tell him that by signing it he was guaranteeing that wouldn’t happen. Perhaps he was mixing that up with the defense bill he did veto. It is so difficult to keep track of two different bills at the same time. Who can be expected to do that?

The clownish aspect of this is undercut by the fact that millions are suffering through unemployment, the failure of small businesses, a housing crisis, and food shortages for many families. It isn’t so much that 600 dollars is not enough. It is the fact that it is coming way too late for many people. Even the 2000 dollars now would likely be too late. The president’s actions were so see through that there were no clothes at all. 

It was never about 600 versus 2000 dollars. It was about somehow punishing Mitch McConnell for saying Biden won. So, Trump was willing to make millions suffer to make a point. The cruelty is certainly on display, but the idiocy can’t be ignored. What was the endgame supposed to be? How could they possibly spin it to be anything but what it was? The gambit made so little political sense because he has never had political sense. He doesn’t know how government works. You’d think he’d learn after nearly four years, but idiots never learn.”

Nick

Well, crazybutt Lin Wood is double pissed at Texas’ John Cornyn, which puts him and me on the same team.  The only difference between Lin Wood and me is … well, everything else.

Lin Wood

Lin Wood is on a tear over Cornyn because Cornyn said he did not believe that the election was stolen. Wood has about 800,000 followers on Twitter and he’s urge them to be heard by harassing Cornyn ahead of the big Walloping Rattlement in Washington January 6th.

Sunday he turned his ire on Cornyn, tweeting, “I would not trust @JohnCornyn any further than I can throw him. Cornyn reeks of Deep State stench. Let him know how you feel Patriots. Time for your voices to be heard by ALL.”

Honey, that stench you smell on John is pure caca del toro, not deep state. He has sold Texas down the river to feather his own nest and that of his oil buddy friends. John is a shallow tic of a man, just sucking up the money that floats to the top for him.

Now, I can’t feel any sympathy at all for John because he built this damn thing.  He loved these same people as long as they did exactly what he said. He knew they were crazy but the thought he could control them.  He couldn’t.

Thanks to SGray for the heads up.