This is something that I am really unclear on. Didn’t Abbott make so that municipalities could not enforce any mask regulations of their own? How does that work? What is the thinking that the State has more power than federal or local governments over something like this?
Oh dear… you’re doing That Thing. Where you try to apply reason, logic, and common sense to Republican attitudes. That way lies madness, friend. Back out while you still can…
I’m not a constitutional law-talking man, but my understanding is that the States have powers and sovereignty. There are some things that the Feds can make the States do, especially if the effects involve interstate activity. There are no powers that the municipalities have, unless they are delegated by the State.
Me and all the other city-dwellers here are amused by your claim that your vast outdoor kingdom is “tiny.”
It is beautiful, though. I can imagine sitting out there on a nice evening with a book and a cool drink…
OK, back to screwing Greg Abbot. And screw Kristi Noem, while we’re at it.
Nah, what he did was both more self-serving and dumber.
Last year he told municipalities they couldn’t enforce their own mask mandates. And the courts agreed he could do this.
Then, when that predictably led to a dramatic increase in cases, he berated cities and counties for not finding the super vague, hidden double-secret probat… loophole he hid in his order all along that would allow mayors and county judges to actually have partial mask mandates all along!
See! It was their fault for not sufficiently rules-lawyering and not his fault at all! In fact, he should be praised for giving them such a great loophole!
Even the latest order leaves him an out. If one of the 22 hospital regions in the state sees trauma bed occupancy above 15% for COVID cases for 7 straight days, county judges can re-impose mask mandates. Of course, those hospital regions encompass several counties, so…
Looking over the last year, for the major cities, this has been the case for maybe only 1-2 months at the peak (~Dec-Jan), so it’s was tailor-designed to allow for re-opening unless shit had gone nearly post-apocalyptic.
So, for example, Houston’s Texas Medical Center (possibly the largest concentration of hospitals in the world) is still in Phase 2 configuration because all their normal ICU beds are totally filled, i.e. ‘normal’ hospital beds are still re-configured as temporary ICU beds due to the pandemic. But Houston is in a region that includes major parts of surrounding suburban and rural counties, including mine, has overall hospital trauma bed utilization by COVID patients at ~11% at the moment.
So, he gets his out. They can impose mandates after it’s too late - when so many people have COVID that hospitals are nearly overflowing, meaning the disease has already been running rampant for weeks.
Cool! Thanks.
Yeah, I’ve always thought the way the state set up the various restrictions based on trailing indicators was exceedingly stupid; if you’re trying to get ahead of a disease, you don’t wait until it’s already a problem to implement countermeasures, and then you don’t automatically lift those restrictions when things are past some arbitrary threshold either.
And if they were going to do that kind of thing, they should have had some kind of multi-tiered approach- say… 5% beds occupied = mask mandate. 10% = bars closed, restaurants at 50% capacity, 15% = restaurants at 25% capacity or closed, and so on.
But there’s no proof that sort of thing was even considered; the whole thing seems to have been GOP politicians trying to figure out how to implement the bare minimum that would keep people from setting their houses on fire in the middle of the night.
Personally I’d love to see an interview with Abbott where someone asks why he hasn’t repealed the seat belt laws, if we all know to wear our seat belts by now? There’s precious little difference between a seat-belt law and a mask mandate when it comes right down to it, but we are required to wear our seat belts or get a pretty hefty ticket, and have been for 30 years.
The decision this week by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to end his state’s mask mandate and lift all restrictions on business reflects a broader move by politically ambitious Republican governors to channel the rising anger of conservative constituents over government efforts to curb the coronavirus.
…The governors — responsive to a Republican electorate radicalized by the pandemic and inflamed by animus against experts and government regulations — are jockeying to present themselves as chief adversaries to President Biden. And with vaccine distribution ramping up, there is political risk in delaying a return to normalcy.
…Pressure on the Texas governor had been mounting on all fronts.
First came the winter storm that pummeled the economy and made him the target of public outrage. Gathering, too, was frustration within his own state’s Republican Party, whose slogan, “We are the storm,” echoes the rallying cry of QAnon extremists who have gained a foothold in the party and turned it into a hub of coronavirus misinformation.
Just 26 percent of Republicans in Texas view the coronavirus as a significant crisis, according to a poll this month from the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune. A similarly small fraction of Republicans support the federal government’s handling of the pandemic. Meanwhile, 41 percent said they would not get a coronavirus vaccine right away.
The findings suggest that the criticism directed at Abbott from the Biden administration isn’t a bug in his strategy. It’s a feature of its appeal for Republican voters influenced by Internet-inspired arguments portraying opposition to public health guidelines as a cultural battle against liberal elites.
…“The proximate cause of Abbott’s actions wasn’t the winter storm as much as it was CPAC,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “He sees other Republican governors bragging about how their state is open, and he didn’t want to be the last Republican governor with economic restrictions.”
…
Showing off for Daddy.
The real answer is that Republicans at all levels want states’ rights when it’s a law they like but no states’ rights when it’s a law they don’t like.
I’m about to pop an important artery after looking at Abbott’s Twitter this morning. Not good for me.
I am pretty certain federal highway funding is somewhat tied to seat belt laws and compliance , so I would imagine his excuse would be 'the feds made me do it and we should have kept that money anyway as texas sends money to Washington ’
Regardless of how true that actually is.
But still, fuck him sideways with a Glory of Texas cactus.
Hell make it cacti
Not really… the mandate that cars have to have certain types of seat belts is a Federal thing, but the laws themselves and their enforcement are a State thing.
Yes , the laws are state laws, but if the state wants some of the federal highway funding money it needs to have those laws in place.
https://one.nhtsa.gov/Laws-&-Regulations/Section-406-SAFETEA–LU-Fact-Sheet
Provides grants to states that implemet seat belt compliance laws,
Again none of that may be relevant as the laws may have been in place prior to that act, but my point was I could see a sack of shit like abbot trying to blame the federal government if asked about implementing perfectly sensible things like seat belt laws.
Oh, sure. But the question would be why haven’t you repealed it?
Then he’d have to say “Well, we want to suckle on that sweet Federal teat, so we go along”, or come up with some other BS reason.
And I’m hoping Biden/Congress will do something similar- if you want X for COVID relief, you’ll implement mask mandates, or something along those lines.
This Texas Monthly article is from July, but it’s still entirely appropriate:
When case numbers started to rise precipitously a few weeks after Abbott’s reopening, mayors and county judges again clamored for the authority to require masks. Abbott backtracked once more, this time in a way that left observers’ heads spinning. He hinted that there was a hidden clause, as yet undiscovered, in one of his executive orders that would allow local officials to put in place a mask mandate—a sort of riddle, one eventually solved by Bexar County judge Nelson Wolff. The governor seemed pleased, in the manner of a parent whose child has made it through an escape room. “The county judge finally figured that out,” he said. Turns out, Abbott had quietly left room for local officials to require businesses to require patrons to wear masks, instead of directly requiring the patrons to do so. And if that weren’t confusing enough, Abbott eventually changed his mind (again) and issued a quasi-statewide order on July 2, after two months of back-and-forth flip-flopping, mandating mask wearing in public in all counties with more than twenty active COVID-19 cases.
I love how quaint that last bit is. “all counties with more than twenty active COVID-19 cases”. That tells you just how much progress we’ve made in the last year in state leadership.
To paraphrase: “Pity poor America. So far from Heaven, so close to Texas”.
Not the Fed! Not the State! Not the cities!
Every law-respecting American knows (or ought to know) that the seat of all sovereignty lies with the County Sheriff!
“If you feel a need to put on a mask to protect your friends, your neighbors, or yourself, that’s your personal choice—all we’re doing is requiring you to identify yourself as a total fucking pussy if you opt to do so,” said Abbott, who also reportedly considered allowing masks with the terms “weakling,” “wuss,” “traitor,” and “degenerate” to be worn…"
44,975 deaths to date in Texas.
I used to know a few whackadoodle SovCit types when I lived in Montana, and to them, the duly authorized Sheriff is the highest Constitutional authority. “Duly authorized” meaning, of course, “agrees with me.”
Yes, but those were people we didn’t like very much anyway. And anyway, the state’s still running (sort of), so how important could they have been?
Calvera: Once I rob a bank in Texas; your government get after me with a whole army… a whole army! One little bank. Is clear the meaning: in Texas, only Texans can rob banks.