A new study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina has concluded the obvious – states with Republican governors had higher COVID case rates and higher death rates from COVID.  In the report, study senior author Sara Benjamin-Neelon, PhD, professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society stated,

“Governors’ party affiliation may have contributed to a range of policy decisions that, together, influenced the spread of the virus.  These findings underscore the need for state policy actions that are guided by public health considerations rather than by partisan politics.”

I know this is like concluding in an academic study that gravity makes things fall down, but it’s good that they quantified in a peer reviewed study what we all knew to begin with – politicizing public health policy gets people killed.

Yesterday, Biden responded to Greg Abbott’s and Mississippi governor Tate Reeves’ announcements lifting all state restrictions that protect their citizens from Coronavirus infections.  In his response, Biden said,

“We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we’re able to get vaccines in people’s arms. … The last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking — that, ‘In the meantime, everything’s fine. Take off your mask. Forget it.’ It still matters.”

How dare Biden denigrate the memory of neanderthals so insensitively.  Their thinking was much more developed than today’s rightwing knuckle draggers.  He should be more careful with his rhetoric.

That’s right, folks, even as Greg Magical Thinking Abbott proclaimed the Coronavirus pandemic over and rescinded all statewide restrictions, the pandemic continues to rage and continues to take lives.   Our positivity rate is 13.5% this week, nearly triple the rate the CDC recommends before opening.  On top of that, Texas ranks 48th in vaccinations, with less than 7% of Texans vaccinated.  The positivity rate now is about the same as last October when the pandemic was beginning its holiday spike that killed thousands of Texans.  What Abbott is doing is stupid.  The real tragedy is that he’s smart enough to know it’s stupid, but having now lost a lot of the center after letting millions of Texans freeze in the dark, his only path to keeping his job next year is to take the Trump path, whip up the extreme right mouthbreathers.

This is classic right-winger response to crises, just like the Great Blackout of 2021 – break the system, make sure it doesn’t function properly, take huge risks while falsely boasting about how great we are, don’t do anything when obvious problems show themselves, then pretend it’s someone else’s fault and throw a staffer under the bus when the system fails.  During the blackout, Abbott threw wind farms, the PUC, and ERCOT all under the bus even though the responsibility for the disaster lay right in his lap and that of the state legislature.

Everyone needs to brace for the next big wave that is certain to come, extending the misery in Texas even longer. Texas’ response to the pandemic has been nothing more than piss-poor.  For comparison, let’s look at a country with similar populations with much better results: Taiwan.  Texas has 29 million people.  Taiwan, 24 million.  Deaths in Texas? 44,000.  Taiwan? 9.  That’s right, 9.  Taiwan did it right.  They never locked down, but implemented strong quarantine rules, contact tracing, and most important, PAID their people to stay home.  Like most of Europe, Taiwan took the financial stress out of the equation.  By contrast, Abbott and the idiots in the legislature added to people’s misery by providing little to no assistance.  He then re-opened the economy in May just as the pandemic was starting to rock.  Realizing his blunder in July, he then implemented stronger shut down measures and a statewide mandate, but kept the state purse strings tied tight.   The result was predictable.  Add Abbott’s blundering to Trump’s gross negligence and incompetence, and you get some of the worst COVID response on the planet.  Thanks for nothing.

Oh, and one last tidbit.  Abbott made this announcement from a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock which, by coincidence, is not connected to ERCOT and didn’t experience the blackouts most of Texas suffered.  Apparently the places in Texas he won’t get booed off the stage are getting a lot smaller.  Asshole.

There is speculation that Trump will flee to Scotland to play golf at his Turnberry resort to avoid attending the inauguration on January 20th.  Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister and head of the Scottish government, caught wind of the potential plans, and warned Trump yesterday that her country is not allowing travel by foreigners for non-essential purposes, including him.  The airport at nearby Prestwick has been alerted to expect arrival of a US military 757 and to not allow his entry into the country.  Like the rest of the UK, Scotland is in lockdown to reduce the surge caused by the new strain of the Coronavirus.  In a briefing today, Sturgeon said this about Trump:

“We are not allowing people to come into Scotland now without an essential purpose, which would apply to him, just as it applies to everybody else. Coming to play golf is not what I would consider an essential purpose.”

AND, it gets better – today, Iran requested another Interpol international arrest warrant for Trump and 47 other US officials identified for their roles in the drone strike a year ago that killed General Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s highest ranking military officer.  The government is vowing to bring Trump and others to justice for this killing.

Just another Tuesday in Trumpland.

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.

The NY Times is reporting that Trump just signed the pandemic relief bill with funding for the federal government through September ’21.  To be continued.