Some students and school staff in two of Texas’ biggest counties are required to wear masks to school on Monday despite the newest roadblock by the state’s Supreme Court.
The Texas Supreme Court, which consists of all GOP judges, granted stay orders on the mask mandates in the two counties on Sunday.
Is that “stay” as in stay stupid?
This is an endless fight between the politically expedient and trying to make the best decision for the most people in a complex situation. Only one side in this fight actually gives a shit about people’s safety.
We can’t run away and hide from the virus - but I will never understand why so many people would not want to take the simple basic steps required to improve everyone’s chances. It is like common sense and normal good will toward our neighbors is being flayed and tortured to death right in front of my eyes.
I came across this opinion piece this morning discussing how to craft a mask mandate that may be able to withstand an ultimate SCOTUS review in this highly political environment we now find ourselves operating within where logic and best medical practice is downplayed.
And another piece on the role of experts and why competence that ought to be so important has become something that is “religiously” ignored:
This is the endgame of 40+ years of Republican misinformation designed to charge up their uninformed base of voters by appealing to what their base is not getting, etc., that has only been amplified by FOX and other right-wing noise disseminators. Before it was “politics”, now, it’s a matter of actual life and death.
So defending peoples “right” to sickness is the hill that Abbott and DeathSantis want to die on?
I know there is a whole lot of stupid in the R party, but in the long run, I think this is going to bite them.
Yes, followed by stay dead
Gee, I thought the Republican Party was in favor of local control and avoided “top down” government authority, control and directives…
“Anyone who wants to help stop the chain of infections of a deadly virus is free to do so, including in schools. For the rest of us, it’s business as usual.”
Reminder: I knew Greg Abbott on a first-name basis years before he became our Governor, and he was exactly the piece of shit back then that you all think he is today.
I remember when this argument:
“doesn’t prohibit prayer. Anyone who wants to pray can do so, including in schools.”
was scoffed at by “conservatives”.
I’m beginning to think they’s just a wee bit inconsistent.
“If God is going to protect you, why do you need a gun?”
— Intertube meme
I’m shocked — SHOCKED! — that the party that opposes both abortion and death with dignity laws are promoting infanticide and the right to die. I’m sure it’s probably just me but it seems brimming with cognitive dissonance with perhaps a tinge of out-and-out hypocrisy.
But again, it’s probably just me, a non-Texan.
The hypocrisy is the point. Not having to be accountable for your decisions, mistakes, and even your arguments - it’s a perk of power.
No surprise there. He and DeSantis should both be prosecuted. ETA good on these school officials; at least someone is thinking about keeping children healthy.
Forget it, Jake, it’s Texas!
I would favor legislation criminalizing reckless indifference to public health, but it is not currently a crime.
Precisely why I left the decision as to which charges should be made to you! IANAL, as should be obvious.
This is what happens when a political party captures a court system. Public health and common sense give way to political posturing. Texas is notorious for its corrupt judiciary so I am not surprised.
Or stay in peril.
I am still in denial that the people who won’t get vaccinated because the vaccine isn’t FDA approved, or are suspicious of the side effects, and won’t wear a mask think that life should just go on as it was in the before times. They refuse to admit that by their own actions and desires they put others at risk, that they are enabling COVID to create new variants, and finally that the virus doesn’t care about their feelings.
They either see this as a survival of the fittest, or that they alone somehow have immunity to a virus that can and will mutate into a more extreme variant.
And I guess they haven’t figured out that by staying unvaccinated while others are that they are placing themselves in greater and greater harms way.
There seems to be no appealing to their better angels. That living in a society or community is a survival game. (side note ever noticed that immunity and community share the same root)
If I were creating federal criminal legislation from scratch, I would place venue in either the district where the recklessly indifferent public official resides or the District of Columbia, since obtaining a jury conviction in the places where COVID nihilism is popular would be fairly difficult. But even the threat of criminal prosecution would probably be effective against at least some of those who know better (which definitely includes Greg Abbott).
Yes the stoopid and blind opposition to anything the Left likes is very strong with these voters. Their RW officials are late to the party and just mindlessly trying to throw out anything that will keep the Rs satisfied or keep them from being censured or primaried.
But there is no doubt in my mind that they lose some R votes because of this behavior and plenty of Independents because it is so obviously and nakedly dangerous. This isn’t about denying science and climate change or evolution which these Rubes can string out for decades with the only risk they MIGHT have to eat their words. Denialism of that sort can take decades to come home to roost and these people are shifty and dishonest enough to be able to squirm away from any responsibility if/when they have to. But COVID and their kids, and their churches, and schools has immediate and deadly effect, and can bankrupt them in days/weeks/months and they are literally sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. Even dead-stupid Rubes can feel that kind of heat.