We’re Number 48!

March 03, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: Abbott, Coronavirus, Corruption, Power Crisis

That’s right, folks, even as Greg Magical Thinking Abbott proclaimed the Coronavirus pandemic over and rescinded all statewide restrictions, the pandemic continues to rage and continues to take lives.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.

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0 Comments to “We’re Number 48!”


  1. Aghast in Austin says:

    Abbott’s incompetence and greed has killed so many Texans (with lots more to come) that his lasting legacy will be two bloody wheel tracks trailing into oblivion.

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  2. Y’all stay safe. Protect yourself.
    I live in VT now, positivity rate here is 1.4%. We have a repub governor but he has kept us safe, and we have been wearing masks for EVER! He listens to the science guys!
    I have lived in TX, AL, MS, TN, FL and GA so I know what it feels like to beat my head against the “ red wall of ignorance”.

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  3. megasoid says:

    Whats he going to do when those numbers get pushed right back through his teeth.
    Just like a bad nightclub ventriloquist that the audience can see his lips moving. They also see the sweat on his upper lip. Quick, some self deprecation to keep them off balance.

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  4. Elizabeth Moon says:

    At the top of the stack for new cases and deaths. At the bottom of the stack for vaccinations (largely due to his mismanagement of Trump’s mismanagement.) Yeah, it’s stupid.

    Spread it wide and spread it thick, make sure people know who’s made them sick. P.R.O.F.A. or Pro-Fa, whichever you prefer. Professional Facist Association or Peoples Republic of Fascist Associations or just pro-Fascist.

    That’s GreedGreg Abbott.

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  5. Fred Farkleshine says:

    Looks like someone still has a little common sense left!

    Kroger will continue to require masks in Texas and Mississippi stores
    Published: March 3, 2021 at 11:28 a.m. ET

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kroger-will-continue-to-require-masks-in-texas-and-mississippi-stores-2021-03-03?mod=newsviewer_click

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  6. Why am I not hearing talk of death panels from the people who like to bring up the term whenever a Democrat is in charge? This is certainly going to consign thousands of additional people to an early grave. And it’s not just Texans. All we have to do is look to how the Sturgis superspreader event resulted in a spike of infections across the Midwest last summer. Spring Break in Texas with no mandates – what could go wrong?

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  7. Be safe folks!

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  8. Ted from the left coast says:

    Why is no one in Texas asking the Governor to step down, or yelling recall? Abbott has done some horrible things to Texas and you all take it, now opening everything up with a pandemic happening?

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  9. Juanita Jean Herownself says:

    We don’t have no damn recall.

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  10. Grandma Ada says:

    Mega solid #3 – Abbott doesn’t need to worry. The Texas Dems. haven’t run a decent ticket against the Governor, Lt. Governor etc. in a long time. He’ll get re-elected in2022 unless things change on the Dem. side, and he knows it.

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  11. megasoid says:

    Grandma Ada @ 10 Hold that faith.

    But once in a while the odd thing happens
    Once in a while the dream comes true
    And the whole pattern of life is altered
    Once in a while, the moon turns blue

    ~ W. H. Auden

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  12. Gail in Richmond says:

    Blinded by silence.(SNL actually had a funny this week.)

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  13. treehugger says:

    Words cannot express how freaking pissed off I am about this.

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  14. treehugger says:

    There are no words to express how freaking pissed off I am about this.

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  15. Litlhorn says:

    And now he’s gonna try to draw the President into a Tweeting war on it, with that tweet blaming all those “hundreds of Illegals with Covid-19” President Biden is releasing into Texas….truly A-Butt.

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  16. Linda Phipps says:

    He’s up for re election in 2022 – I bet we will get elected again.

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