8/18/21 Defy This! Impose That! Tugs-Of-War Over Student Safety Surpass ABCs as Schools Prep for COVID19, Round Two

Nine Republican-led states have tried to bar new mask requirements for no apparent reason other than to try to look like Donald Trump.

The most egregious Wannabes are the governors of Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma. All of them have banned mask mandates, even with schools opening within days.

In Florida, Gov. Ron ("Strongman") DeSantis has threatened to stop paying school board members and principals who defy his mask mandate and fine them multiple thousands of dollars. The federal Education Secretary has said it will pay school leaders if DeSantis makes good on his promise.

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas was himself diagnosed with COVID19 yesterday. He has been vaccinated, so it's a breakthrough infection, and so far he is asymptomatic. So no, God did not smite him, no matter how much you may think the governor deserves it.

Abbott won a legal victory a few days ago when the Texas Supreme Court gave him temporary permission to uphold his mask-mandate ban in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio (remember the Alamo?). The governor's forces are trying to add Harris County, where most of Houston lies.

Arizona's Doug Ducey banned mask mandates, but that law doesn't kick in till September 29, so school districts will start as they wish. As for the land of the Tiger King, the lawsuits are flying as we speak.

In 28 states, local districts can make their own call. And then there are the anti-maskers in mask-mandate states, such as New Mexico and Ilinois, each with at least one district fighting in court for the right to leave masks off despite mandates imposed by Democratic governors.

With all this uncertainty, we can be sure of one thing: A lot of lawyers are going to be able to send their kids to private schools.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/568233-school-districts-impose-mask-mandates-defying-gop-governors?rl=1

Photo: "I hate you COVID" by Matthew Almon Roth is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

8/18/21 Don't Want to Start a War? Get Senator John Cornyn Banned from Twitter

Donald Trump started the big troop drawdown in Afghanistan, but you wouldn't think so when you hear politicians across the spectrum talk about Joe Biden's gigantic error in bringing the troops home.

One of those potshots came from Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. On Twitter, he wrote that the "numbers indicate we had achieved stability with relatively small troop exposure, and a good recent track record without casualties."

For comparison, Cornyn noted the numbers of US troops in Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Japan and Africa. Each had far more troops than there were in Afghanistan just a few months ago.

The post stayed up for 13 hours, till Tuesday, with a howler of a goof: Cornyn said that the US had 30,000 troops in Taiwan. Nope. The Senator added three zeros to the current total (not counting 15 civilians).

By the time Cornyn & Co. woke up to the error, China was rattling its jian. China insists that Taiwan is not a country but part of mainland China. They want it back.

"If the tweet is correct," said the Communist Party's Global Times newspaper, "China could immediately activate [the] Anti-Secession Law to destroy and expel US troops in Taiwan and reunify Taiwan militarily." Other zingers included "If there are US troops present on Taiwan island, China will crush them by force."

The Global Times' editor-in-chief also tweeted that if the figures in Cornyn's tweet were factual, "Chinese military forces will immediately launch a war to eliminate and expel the US soldiers."

As the State Department might (not) put it, "Shut UP, Senator!"

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/cornyn-us-troop-numbers-afghanistan-taiwan-fact-check/index.html

Art: https://openclipart.org/detail/285858/texas-state-flag-map

8/15/21 A Parent Knowingly Sends a COVID-Positive Kid to School

In Washoe County, Nevada, more than 58% of residents are fully vaccinated -- a lot better than the overall U.S. rate of 48%. Yet in Reno, Washoe's biggest city, one parent found a way to tank COVID safety for 80-some kids at Marce Herz Middle School on their very first day back to class.

That's how many kids were exposed to one student whom a parent sent to school despite knowing the child was COVID-positive.

Whether that parent is a snarling Trumpist or a dingbat or both we don't know. The identities and genders of the COVID-positive pair -- because the parent was COVID-positive too -- haven't been disclosed. We do know they wouldn't talk to county health officials.

The school will let the exposed kids back into school if they can show they're fully vaccinated. Those who aren't vaccinated can go back August 17 -- if they can show a negative test dated after August 14.

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If you were a fellow parent with a child at that middle school, wouldn't you be hopping mad?

Should the parent be charged with a crime for sending the contagious child to school? Child endangerment? Assault with a deadly weapon?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/us/reno-nevada-school-covid-exposure/index.html

Photo: "I hate you COVID" by Matthew Almon Roth is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

8/15/21 Biden Thanks School Supervisors Whose Mask Mandates Defy Governors

Superintendents at Phoenix Union High School District in Arizona and Broward County Schools in Florida got calls from President Biden yesterday. He thanked them for the mask mandates they've imposed in defiance of their governors. Well, technically, their "shared commitment to getting students back for full-time in-person classes this school year," according to Politico.

Arizona's Governor Doug Ducey has said that mask mandates are “toothless, unenforceable and will not hold up in court.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has gone farther, threatening to stop paying the salaries of superintendents and school board members who defy him, plus impose many thousands of dollars in fines.

The White House didn't just blow kisses. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote to DeSantis and his state education secretary, saying his department would pay the salaries of the school officials whose livelihoods had been threatened.

Biden could have thanked many more school officials. In Texas, for instance, well over three dozen school districts are requiring kids, staffers, and visitors to mask up despite Governor Greg Abbott's banning mask mandates of any kind.

Mask mandates fight a continuing spike in child COVID infections. Broward County's Joe DeMaggio Hospital for children reported that they'd treated 20 kids for COVID in June and more than 240 in July, with no signs of a slowdown.

Politico.com: Biden Praises Superintendents for School District Mask Mandates

8/16/21 Texas Abortion Law: The First Domino Falls at the End of August

Last year, there were 54,000 abortions in Texas; in 2019, 56,000.

In a few weeks, that number will fall off a cliff when an astoundingly restrictive abortion ban kicks in. It makes abortion illegal once the fetus has a heartbeat, about six weeks into pregnancy, when women typically don't know they're pregnant.

“This law is senseless. It’s not in the best interest of the people of Texas,” says one abortion provider. “But it is the law, and if it passes, we have to comply.”

The law could be the first of a series of events that make abortion tougher for women to find.

Domino 1:

Abortion providers will all but shut down, at least at first, partly for lack of legal business, but also to avoid an endless stream of lawsuits.

The group Texas Right to Life has launched a website for whistleblowers who want to potentially help sue doctors, so there'll be no shortage. Ordinary citizens can sue abortion providers too. Lawyers for both sides expect many of the lawsuits to be frivolous.

The kicker: Under the new law, defendants cannot recover costs from a lawsuit even if they win. And once sued under the law, a doctor's medical licensing could be affected.

Domino 2:

One transportation service, based in North Texas, has helped women go to other states for abortion access, but it's shutting down. The National Abortion Federation is creating a special “concierge team” to assist women in Texas.

Still, the bucks to send women to other states just aren't there -- not yet. That means that women of lower income will have next to no options for getting out of state, even aside from rescheduling work and family responsibilities.

Domino 3:

If the law can be implemented successfully, abortion-law watchers expect similar laws to proliferate in the south and in midwestern states, where abortion access is already difficult.

The newly conservative Supreme Court will hear their first major abortion case in years this fall. The 6-week ban is moved far up from the 6-month time frame specified in Roe v. Wade.

If the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law, Roe will be overthrown.

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Six weeks into a pregnancy (about 4 weeks after implantation) is about when a home pregnancy test can first detect a pregnancy. That means it will be too late for a legal abortion by the time most women find out they're pregnant. Doesn’t this sound like an attempt to outlaw virtually all abortions in Texas?

If abortions to become essentially illegal in red states, but stay legal in blue states, what will that disparity do to the culture of the US? Won’t red states become poorer? Or would red states just have more illegal abortions and so more dead women?

What other differences would you anticipate?

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-abortion-clinics-brace-for-near-shutdown-as-16382541.php?sid=5dc30632fc942d1f403e32c0&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news_a&utm_campaign=HC_MorningReport

Art: https://openclipart.org/detail/285858/texas-state-flag-map

8/16/21 The USA is a Patchwork of COVID Confusion. How Sane is Your Community?

Where'd you rather live right now?

---Ware County, Georgia, where all 11 public schools just closed because of a COVID-19 spike? Of 5,900 students, 76 students tested positive for COVID-19 and another 679 students were quarantined after the first week of school. Only 29% of Georgians are fully vaccinated.

---New Orleans, the destination for more than 3,000 fake vaccination cards from China that have been intercepted in Memphis?

---Texas, where Governor Abbott's no-mask-mandate order was upheld Sunday by the state's supreme court?

We'd say None of the Above, but it's not just local with these examples; it's local everywhere in the US. Fake vaccination cards have been found in several states. Schools have sent kids into quarantine. And mini-Trumps have tried out dictators' tactics -- and they're succeeding in Florida and Texas.

Is hiding at home going to be enough to stay safe? Are you being asked to submit to idiotic government orders over COVID-19? Do you trust your neighbors, your mail carrier, your pharmacy...?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ware-county-georgia-schools-shut-covid-delta_n_6118377fe4b0454ed70e5c52

8/12/21 "We Know Who You Are!" Tennessee's Parents Fight School Mask Mandate Even as Kids Swell Hospital ICUs

One out of five parents have vowed not to vaccinate their eligible 12- to 17-year olds, including two out of five Republican parents, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of parents with kids from 5 to 11 years, a full three quarters say they won't have their kids vaccinated even if they become eligible, the KFF says. On the plus side, nearly 85 percent of parents were more open to having their kids wear masks in schools because of the Delta variant, according to a Frank Luntz/de Beaumont Foundation poll.

85 percent is a pretty darned high level of consensus for masking. There's plenty of kids being hospitalized for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or Covid19 as it is. Nationwide, nearly 1,600 kids were hospitalized last week with Covid19. Louisiana's pediatric ICU beds are all full, Tennessee's are expected to be full by the end of the week. At Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, 45 kids were hospitalized with RSV or Covid19 at last count -- and 25 kids had both!

So why was it that last week, parents in the wealthy enclave of Franklin, Tennessee started harassing and even threatening medical workers who advocated masks at a school board meeting? One mask opponent got disruptive and was escorted from the building.

After the board approved the mandates, parents surrounded the mask advocates as they left the building, chanting "We'll not comply!" Some yelled obscenities, and a few shouted at people who'd reached their cars with "You're not on our side! We know who you are!" and "You can leave freely, but we will find you! You won't be allowed in public again!" Torches and pitchforks would hardly have been out of place.

Do these parents realize that in a matter of weeks, they could be shopping for pink and blue caskets?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/11/covid-children-hospitals-schools-reopen-503885

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/567374-parents-surround-physicians-advocating-for-masks-in-schools-we-know-who Photo: "I hate you COVID" by Matthew Almon Roth is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0