Tag Archives: Greg Abbott

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.

education news

Keep our schools closed!

There’s a marquee in front of the brand new elementary school in our Princeton, Texas, neighborhood that reads “We miss you. See you May 4.”

That’s when Texas’s public schools are supposed to reopen in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s my suggestion: Do not reopen the schools; keep them closed for the remainder of this academic year.

The first week of May is far too early to send our children back to school, where they would mingle with other children. Do we expect kindergartners or first-graders — or even older children — to observe the six-foot rule, to practice “social distancing”?

My hope is that we can keep the schools dark. Let the kids continue to study at home until the end of our school year. School systems can issue pass/fail grades for the students. Those who pass can move to the next grade; those who fail can do it all over again in the fall.

Our primary concern needs to be the health of our children and the men and women who educate them … and the staff members who run our schools.

I hereby request that Gov. Greg Abbott forget about reopening our schools on May 4. Close ’em for the rest of the year. Then let’s concentrate on stemming this infection rate.

local news, medical news

Get over yourselves, Judge Jenkins and Gov. Abbott!

I want to make a request on this blog of two leading politicians who appear to be locking horns over the use of a “pop up hospital” erected to handle an expected surge in coronavirus cases in Dallas County.

It is this: Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott need to set their past disputes aside and work together on behalf of stricken and anxious North Texans.

Jenkins is a Democrat, while Abbott is a Republican. That difference right there seems to suggest a starting point in the two men’s apparent tension. The major parties don’t work well at times in Texas.

They have erected a temporary hospital at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. Jenkins, according to the Dallas Morning News, has been a bit reluctant to open the center for patients. Abbott wants Jenkins to move more quickly. Their staffs aren’t working too well together at the moment.

The Morning News article I’ve attached to this blog post suggests a lengthy history of tension between the men. Jenkins is a supporter of the Affordable Care Act; Abbott is not and they have clashed over whether the state should expand benefits for those enrolled in the ACA. Jenkins doesn’t like the state’s usurping of local control over certain matters; Abbott has gone along with the Legislature’s moves to consolidate power in Austin.

Meanwhile, thousands of Dallas County residents have been stricken by the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus. My wife and I, along with one of our sons and his family, live in next-door Collin County. I happen, therefore, to detest politicians who let personal history get in the way of their need to work together to deal with a crisis.

Earth to Jenkins and Abbott: We’ve got a beaut of a crisis right now!

Get over yourselves, gentlemen! For the sake of those of us who might depend on that temporary hospital, not to mention the services provided by our state and local counties!

education news

School’s out … for the summer? Let’s hope so

There’s a shiny new elementary school in our Princeton, Texas, neighborhood. It opened this year, welcoming more than 400 students.

It’s been quiet at Dorothy Lowe School since spring break. The marquee in front of the school tells the kids that their teachers miss them and that they will see them on May 4.

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

You see, the school’s been closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Greg Abbott issued a recent order that keeps all Texas public schools closed until May 4. The closure affects about 5.4 million students, about 357,000 teachers and an untold number of administrative and support staff, vendors and contractors.

If I were King of the World, I’d say school should be out for the summer. The outbreak isn’t going to diminish in time for the doors to open in one month. Indeed, the greater Dallas/Fort Worth metro area is being identified as a possible new “hot spot” for the killer disease.

With that prospect possibly awaiting us, it is my considered opinion that Gov. Abbott ought to just order the schools closed for the duration of the 2019-20 academic year.

Independent school districts could just issue pass/fail grades to students and let the students who pass move on to the next grade.

The threat to students’ and teachers’ health and well-being is too great. They must not be exposed to the threat that continues to loom out there.

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.

national news

Beginning to look past the pandemic

One of the ways I occupy my mind during this coronavirus pandemic is to consider what lies on the other side of this crisis.

Namely, I think about the issues I want to ponder once we are able to push the pandemic a bit toward the back of the shelf. Yeah, I know it sounds more than a little bit nerdy.

A few things come to mind.

  • The presidential election is probably Issue No. 1. I want to see a new president take office next January. It looks like my choice will be Joseph R. Biden Jr. He’s way ahead in the march toward the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He’ll get nominated somehow, even if it’s not in the standard way: going to a convention full of delegates, having them barter and bicker over campaign platform planks. Then I want to focus on ways to encourage Biden to defeat Donald John Trump.
  •  The 2021 Texas Legislature will convene in January. Democrats might be able to wrest control of the House of Reps from Republicans. Not so sure about the Texas Senate. Democrats need to flip just nine of the 150 House seats to become the new majority. Perhaps a new House majority can enact some smart laws that can survive a veto by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.
  •  Climate change needs our undivided attention. I worry about what’s happening to our polar ice caps and the wildlife they nurture. Polar bears are in dire peril if they cannot hunt for seals on the Arctic ice. I want a robust debate on climate change, but I fear that won’t happen if Donald Trump gets re-elected.

I know there’s a wide range of issues to discuss once we “socially distance” the pandemic to a manageable problem. I don’t believe the virus is going to disappear until we find a vaccine and manufacture enough of it to inoculate every human being on Earth. I’ll say a prayer to the scientists who are working on that matter at this moment.

That would be the way I define “returning to normal.” I hope it’s not a pipe dream.

medical news, national news

POTUS is getting it, finally: Pandemic is serious … and deadly

Donald Trump has signed on to what his medical response team has known all along: that the coronavirus pandemic is serious, it is deadly and it deserves an all-hands-on-deck response.

It took far too long for the president to accept what the scientists and medical gurus were telling him. However, his statement today tells me that the warnings he has heard are finally sinking into his thick, and vacuous skull.

Trump said today we can expect a very difficult two-week period ahead. The rate of COVID-19 infections are going to increase, as will the rate of death.

Governors have gotten it. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has extended the shelter in place directive to the end of April; he also has extended public school closures to May 4. Those dates remain fluid, of course, but at least our state government is taking the kind of proactive approach that — until this moment — has been missing at the federal level of government.

The president now projects 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from the virus. It’s a far cry from what he said not that long ago. It was just in February when Donald Trump said the infection stood at 15 and would vanish all by itself before too long. Hmm. It didn’t happen.

Indeed, it has gotten far worse than the president was letting on.

But … now he is on board with what the experts have told him. Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci are stellar infectious disease experts assigned to the task force led by Vice President Mike Pence. They have delivered a grim prognosis.

If only the president had accepted the bad news long before now. At least, though, he has signed on.

For now.

State news

Texas AG: Gun shops are an ‘essential’ business … yikes!

I suppose you can chalk this one up as an “only in Texas” kind of thing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has determined that gun shops are an “essential business” and therefore can remain open while other businesses are being shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic.

There is something kind of weird about Paxton’s decision, which countermands a statement issued by the mayor of Lubbock, who determined that gun shops in the West Texas city are “non-essential” and should close during this time of crisis.

How do we define essential? The way I define the term, that would include businesses that sell food, medicine, various household cleaning supplies.

But … guns? Seriously? Ken Paxton thinks that guns count as something Texans need to purchase.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t issued a stay-at-home order for all Texans. He has left that decision up to local governments, some of which have been proactive; others have been, well, not so much.

State Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, asked Paxton for a ruling after the mayor made his determination. I guess Burrows got what he sought.

I just find Paxton’s decision to be peculiar … although not the least bit surprising. Gotta have them guns at the ready, right? I mean, we just don’t have enough of ’em out there already.

national news

Trump is writing a prescription for disaster

Donald John Trump is full of sh** if he thinks reopening the nation’s businesses by Easter is smart, given the still-accelerating rate of infection by the coronavirus.

That isn’t derailing the president’s rush to get the economy up and “rarin’ to go” by the time the Easter Bunny shows up.

Good grief.

Trump’s stated aim is coming in light of medical experts’ advice to the precise contrary. They want to keep the lid on business as usual for a while longer. Americans are still getting infected by the coronavirus. Oh, and they’re still dying.

What is Trump trying to do here?

He can count me as one who is far more interested in preserving human lives — and avoiding contamination — than in juicing up the economy.

Do I enjoy watching my retirement account disappear? Of course not. However, I also am enough of a realist to know that the fund will restore itself eventually.

Local officials here in North Texas are invoking shelter in place policies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is imploring us to be careful, to put our health concerns first. Governors such as New York’s Andrew Cuomo are trying to beat some sense into us about the danger that still lurks with this disease.

Then we hear from the president of the United States urging us to get back to business. That pandemic response team that stands with him at those moronic White House briefings is quite likely telling Trump to slow down, dummy up on the “rarin’ to go” nonsense.

If only he would listen to someone who knows more about these risks than he does.

national news

Pandemic crisis spurs renewed hope in our future

And now … for a healthy dose of uplifting news at a time when we all could use a bit of cheer.

If you’re worrying about the future of our nation — and, for that matter, our planet — consider all the stories we are hearing about the acts of kindness being performed by young people as they help their neighbors during the coronavirus pandemic.

I am struck and frankly a bit stunned at the stories we keep hearing, reading and grasping. Young people are running errands for their elderly neighbors, or even complete strangers. They grasp the notion that some Americans need a helping hand, but lack the mobility that others possess. So they step up, lend a hand — and they do with no strings attached. They realize, to borrow the phrase that’s sweeping the land, that “we’re all in this together.”

“Good Morning America” today featured an organization that sprung up as the pandemic began taking its toll; the organization is called “Invisible Hands.”

Liam Elkind is a 20-something New York City resident who co-founded Invisible Hands. He shops for food and other essentials for neighbors. He is on a state-ordered break from college. He can’t go to the beach or hang out in bars with his pals. So he is extending a helping “invisible hand” to those who need help.

That is just one example of young folks answering the call.

I want to mention this merely to convey what I believe is an example of our nation’s future is in good hands. Sure, the kindness and compassion isn’t limited to young folks. Many millions of Americans of all ages are responding with open hearts as well.

Let’s just be mindful of what is transpiring. It’s a national emergency. States are beginning to lock themselves down. California is the most notable example of the kind of drastic, but necessary, measures that we’re seeing implemented.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered every one of the state’s 40 million residents to “stay at home,” and to leave only if they have business that requires them to venture out. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered severe restrictions on the number of people who can gather indoors, a move that has closed restaurants, bars, gymnasiums. These decisions are occurring across the nation.

Young people and others who are physically able are stepping into the breach to lend a much-needed hand.

We’ll get through this. Yes, it might take a good bit of time. The response we’re seeing all over this great land tells me, though, that we’re going to be just fine … and that our future is in good hands.

This, I declare, provides incontrovertible proof of America’s longstanding greatness.