Category Archives: State news

State news

Thanks, Gov. Abbott, but no thanks; I’m staying home

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says it’s time to reopen the state. The stay at home order he issued has done its job by reducing the level of infection from COVID-19.

Restaurants, malls, museums, libraries, retail outlets can reopen, he said today, but they have to limit it to 25 percent of capacity.

Governor, you may count me as one Texan who’s going to stay away. My wife and I are going to continue doing what we’ve been doing: We’ll go out only when we must purchase an essential item; we’re going to keep wearing masks; we’re going to wipe door handles, shopping carts and our hands with sanitized wipes.

I want Texas and the nation to get back to business as much as the next guy. However, I am leery of any relaxation at this moment. I keep reading about the potential for spikes in infection. I keep fearing the prospect of testing positive for the virus. I am 70 years of age; my wife is a bit younger, but she, too, is at risk. The good news is that we both enjoy good health but we want to ensure that our health status remains good.

I do endorse the notion that Abbott’s decision doesn’t require businesses to reopen, but that it gives them the permission to do so. They shouldn’t rush to fling open their doors, even to a 25-percent capacity.

With that, I just want to say “thanks, Gov. Abbott, but no thanks.” I am going to stay home and keep doing what I have been doing until we can report an even greater significant decline in the rate of infection.

State news

Mayor learns first-hand lesson on trial of leadership

Beaumont (Texas) Mayor Becky Ames certainly knows what it means to be an elected leader of a city under duress.

It means, to those who might be unaware, that you must do what you order others to do, or in the case of Ames’s recent misstep … not do what she tells others they shouldn’t do.

Ames was seen in a nail salon getting a nail treatment the other day. As the saying goes: oops. Beaumont is under a shelter in place/stay at home order that the mayor issued. You know the story. The coronavirus pandemic has forced us all to keep our “social distance” and we must not use services that put us too close to other human beings.

Ames was caught violating the city’s mandate.

Ames has issued an apology. According to MSN.com:

“I promise there was no malice intended,” she wrote in a statement. “I should never have entered the salon last Tuesday. I did not intend to take personal privilege while asking others to sacrifice and for that I am truly remorseful.”

Ames concluded by asking for forgiveness. “As an elected official I am held to a higher standard, I regret my action that day. I am honestly sorry and I pray that you will forgive me,” she said.

I worked in Beaumont for nearly 11 years as editor of the Beaumont Enterprise opinion page. I barely know Becky Ames, who’s been mayor since 2007. She served as an at-large member of the Beaumont City Council from 1994 until she became mayor; I left Beaumont in early 1995.

That all said, I want to suggest that Ames’s apology sounds like the real thing. There’s none of that “If I offended anyone” qualifier in it.

I also suggest that elected leaders of all stripes, at all levels, should heed the embarrassment that has befallen Mayor Ames. She knew better than to do what she did. She got caught.

As for whether she ought to be prosecuted for getting a manicure, Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham is looking into it. My gut tells me that there ought to be some punishment. An apology doesn’t expunge the record of a crime being committed. She won’t go to jail, but could face a fine of as much as $1,000.

The mayor can afford to pay the fine.

State news

Reporting a ‘pleasant’ consequence of the pandemic

INTERSTATE 35, Texas — There’s little positive or pleasant elements to report on a global pandemic that has killed and sickened millions of human beings around the world.

However, my wife and I can report one borderline positive aspect of this pandemic — which has shut down the Texas economy and kept a lot of Texans at home.

We drove from Princeton to Dripping Springs in Texas. It took us about four hours, which is what our fancy I-phone said it would take.

But here’s the thing. We cruised through downtown Dallas on Interstate 35 during what normally would be considered the morning “rush hour.” Except that there was no “rush hour traffic” in Dallas.

We zoomed through the heart of Big D and headed south along I-35, the highway known during normal traffic times as a demolition derby. Traffic usually is bumper-to-bumper between Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio. Not today.

Oh, but it gets better. We breezed into the north end of Austin around noon. When we usually drive into the People’s Republic of Austin we will be forced to stop when traffic gets stalled. Again, not today. We swooshed through the city, hung a quick right turn westbound on U.S. 290 and cruised into Dripping Springs.

I want to mention this as a way to perhaps brighten what might another gloomy day of worry over the coronavirus pandemic. I am not dismissing the misery that still occurs 24/7 around the world.

I merely want you to know that despite the bitching, griping and protesting that’s occurring in some places — including right here in Texas — about the orders being handed out that many millions of others are obeying the stay at home mandates handed out by our government.

It makes for a quite pleasant travel experience. Now we will hope for the same circumstance when we go home.

State news

Idiocy finds its way to Texas

The demonstrations that erupted in places like Michigan, where protesters are griping about mandates for folks to stay at home and practice “social distancing” while we fight the coronavirus pandemic have found their way to Texas.

Idiocy is alive and well in Austin.

The morons who suggest, as they did in Austin, that the pandemic is some sort of “hoax,” need to have their heads examined. They are spewing conspiracy bullsh** about all of this being some sort of phony element contrived to defeat Donald John Trump in the presidential election.

As The Guardian reported: In Texas, where the anti-shutdown protest was organized by conspiracy theorists, the rhetoric was more extreme, with an organizer referring to the “coronavirus hoax,” and the “narratives” of the “Deep State”.

Alex Jones, the InfoWars founder, stood at the center of a packed crowd of hundreds of people on Saturday afternoon and bellowed into a bullhorn, praising attendees for resisting tyranny. Few of the Texas protesters were wearing masks.

The defiance exhibited at demonstrations such as these — not to mention the arrogance and ignorance — reminds me of the truism that you shouldn’t tempt fate … because fate has a way of hitting back much harder than one ever expects.

State news

Classrooms remain empty for the rest of the school year

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MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This post has been corrected. Your blogger regrets the error of the original post.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made what might be among the most predictable decisions yet in this coronavirus pandemic fight.

He has closed Texas’s public schools for the remainder of the academic year. The state’s 5.4 million students and their teachers and school staffers are still at work. They are studying at home. Teachers are sending study materials to the students’ homes; the students are turning in their work. However, the school buildings themselves remain dark.

A relaxation of other restrictions appears to be coming. Abbott announced the formation of a task force that will craft a list of recommendations to be presented in fairly short order on how the state should proceed with lifting certain restrictions.

The school recommendation was pretty much a fait accompli. Abbott had set a May 4 target date for classes to reopen with students and teachers, but that date became unrealistic because the state was unable to curb the infection rate sufficiently to allow the reopening of schools.

Now comes the harder part. The “strike force” that Abbott announced will decide on a phased-in approach to restarting the Texas economy. Abbott already has announced some loosening of restrictions at hospitals, certain retail businesses and — this is my favorite item — reopening of state parks; my wife and I are itching to awaken our fifth wheel from its extended winter hibernation and take it to a state park for a few days.

Abbott pledges that his actions will be guided by “data and doctors.” That’s a welcome pledge from the governor. Proceed, Gov. Abbott … but with maximum caution.

I, too, am anxious to return to some semblance of what we used to think of as normal. However, the stakes are too great to mess this up by proceeding too hastily.

State news

Undocumented immigrants getting unfair punishment

Oh, if we only could muster up a bit of compassion in this country for U.S. residents who lack proper immigration documents, but who perform “essential” work, pay their taxes and behave themselves.

These folks are being neglected by the “economic stimulus package” that is being sent to millions of Americans. They won’t receive the help that is going to U.S. citizens.

Call me a bleeding heart if you wish. I’m OK with that as it regards this issue.

The Texas Tribune reports that roughly 8.2 percent of Texas’ workforce comprises undocumented immigrants. Yes, they are here “illegally” in the strict definition of the term. They face deportation by the Trump administration.

But they pay their taxes, giving money to the U.S. Treasury. They do not break other U.S. laws. They act as de facto law-abiding citizens. Except they are being shut out of the government’s economic stimulus initiative activated by the coronavirus pandemic.

I do not believe that is fair. It is as unfair as the effort to criminalize the Dreamers who live here “illegally” because their parents brought them to this country as children. They are recipients of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals measure enacted by President Obama, but which was revoked by Donald J. Trump. The state and nation are full of DACA recipients who have lived as model “citizens,” even as they lack the documentation that grants them citizenship, or even legal immigrant status.

And so the unfairness is now spilling onto those who deserve some economic relief in this perilous time.

State news

Gov. Abbott needs to defend Texas

I know what I am about to ask will be tantamount to waiting for hell to freeze over, but it’s worth asking anyway.

When are you going to challenge Donald Trump’s profound ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and defend for your own executive authority as governor of one of our 50 United States?

There the president was on Monday, proclaiming that he has “absolute authority” to order states to relax their own governor’s executive orders issued in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump declared that he makes the call as president of the United States, that he can dictate when the country can get back to business as usual.

Meanwhile, some governors — almost all of them Democrats — have begun to push back on that. Chief among them is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has emerged as the real political superstar in this drama while he deals with the death and illness brought to his state by the pandemic. Cuomo reminded Trump that he is an “elected president” and is not a king.

Oh, and where is Abbott? The Republican governor is silent … so far. Good grief. He knows better than to accept Donald Trump’s ridiculous assertion of “absolute authority.” Abbott took an oath to defend the Constitution when he became governor in 2015. Indeed, he is lawyer, a former trial judge in Houston, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and a former Texas attorney general. He knows the law.

Federal law — along with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution — do not allow the president to intercede in such a ham-handed fashion.

Abbott is planning to release his own directive later this week on how he intends to proceed with possible relaxation of stay at home guidelines for Texans. Trump in effect has declared that Abbott’s pending announcement is irrelevant, that the president can exert whatever authority he deems fit to force states to follow his bidding.

He does not have that authority.

Gov. Abbott needs to make that fact abundantly clear to the ignoramus who is posing as president of the United States.

local news, State news

Cabin fever is overpowering

I am making an admission with this blog post. It is that the coronavirus pandemic has afflicted me with a serious case of cabin fever.

The image with this post is of the fifth wheel my wife and I own, along with the pickup. The picture was snapped a year ago while we were parked for a couple of nights at San Angelo State Park.

But … here’s the deal: Texas has closed all its state parks. That means we cannot take our recreational vehicle for a trip to any of them. Nothing is open. The Parks & Wildlife Department shut ’em all down. It’s only temporary.

However, you have to understand something about my wife and me. We are ardent supporters of our state park system. We purchase a state park pass each year to waive our entrance fee into any of the parks throughout our state.

We can’t use it. TP&W has extended the park pass for two months past its expiration date, and we’re grateful for that.

In the meantime we’re stuck at home. That RV is parked about three miles away. Our truck is in our driveway. We don’t even drive the truck much, given that Gov. Greg Abbott and the city of Princeton have closed practically all outdoor activities, most businesses.

Cabin fever is the pits, man. Although it’s surely not nearly as perilous as the fever associated with COVID-19. Accordingly, I am grateful that our family has been spared the disease, although we hear from family members that they’re going stir crazy, too. We feel their pain.

The stay at home directive has shut down anything we can do with the RV. A private RV park is out of the question as well, as nothing in any community we would want to visit is open to visitors.

Do you get my drift? We are ready for the “social distancing” we’re all observing will have the desired effect and will reduce the infection rate sufficiently to allow Gov. Abbott and other officials to give us the “all clear.”

When we hear it, we’re likely to hit the road open as soon as is humanly possible.

Cabin fever is the pits.

local news, State news

Go slowly on relaxing restrictions

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reportedly is planning to issue an executive order this week that sets in motion a relaxation of the restrictions enacted to fight to coronavirus pandemic.

Allow me to offer this bit of advice: Go slow on returning to what we call “normal” activity.

Abbott’s emergency response team tells us that social distancing is doing its job, that the infection rate is stabilizing if not declining. Indeed, we’re practicing it in our household, as are our sons. My wife and I haven’t socialized with anyone since the pandemic began creeping into our lives.

Abbott doesn’t seem like someone who is going to rush to return to normal activity. He was a bit slow to issue the stay at home order, although he didn’t call it that. Whatever. We’re staying at home and that’s worked well for us. We venture out only to buy food at the grocery store or to purchase weed killer at the garden shop.

Princeton has shut down dining in at restaurants and practically every form of service business you can name. Haircuts? Gymnasiums? Forget about it!

I did walk into a bank the other day wearing a face mask my wife had made and joked to the teller how strange it felt to be wearing a mask while walking into a bank. She didn’t have me arrested, for which I was much obliged.

This so-called “new normal” is beginning to feel more like just plain “normal” the longer we’re into it.

But … whatever Abbott does later this week, I urge him to go slow in suggesting how we should behave. For that matter, all of us on the receiving end of the governor’s suggestion would do well to proceed with all due caution.

Social distancing is working, man, but we ain’t in the clear.

local news, medical news, State news

Gov. Abbott climbs aboard the stay-at-home wagon

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I suppose you could accuse Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of being a bit slow on the uptake in his statewide response to the coronavirus pandemic.

I will not join that chorus.

Gov. Abbott today issued a stay-at-home order for Texans. Don’t leave the house except to purchase essential items, such as food, fuel and assorted necessary household items. We can venture outside, walk around the neighborhood but we just need to keep our distance from our neighbors. Abbott’s order is in effect at least through the end of April.

There likely will be a decision soon on whether public schools will open on May 4, which the governor set as the return date for millions of students and their teachers. I am getting close to being able to bet the farm that Abbott will close the schools for the remainder of the academic year. A May 4 return date — at this moment, with the cases of COVID-19 still skyrocketing — seems far too early.

Only 10 states are left that haven’t issued the kind of order that came from Austin today. Perhaps they, too, will join the rest of the country. It well might be that the federal government will issue a nationwide order, pulling everyone off the street and closeting all Americans in their homes. I’m OK with that order if it comes.

So far the nation’s response has been a bit of a hodge-podge of reaction, depending on the state or the county or the individual community. My wife and I live in a city, Princeton, that doesn’t to my knowledge have any known cases of COVID-19.

However, I did get a chilling response from Farmersville Police Chief Michael Sullivan, who I interviewed for a story I am working on for the Farmersville Times. He said local officials depend on information released by county health officials, which does not account for those who might be carrying the virus but who haven’t yet been tested by public health authorities.

This story is far from showing signs of letting up. I am going to applaud Gov. Abbott for stepping up the state’s response, even if he was a bit slow to take action.