SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Medical staff wearing full PPE clean a patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center on June 30, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have spiked since Texas reopened, pushing intensive-care wards to full capacity and sparking concerns about a surge in fatalities as the virus spreads. (Photo: Go Nakamura/Getty Images)
The GOP's Grotesque Response to a Pandemic Will Never Be Forgotten
With nearly 130,00 US deaths and 2.6 million infections—gosh, what to do now? Of course! Let's take away the health care coverage of some 23 million Americans!
Jul 01, 2020
Harking back to the embarrassing days of Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry, my state of Texas is once again saddled with a Republican gubernatorial goober. Greg Abbott is this guy's name, and he's another incompetent right-wing ideologue whose botched handling of our state's COVID-19 crisis makes President Donald Trump look like a master administrator of public health.
Unfortunately for you non-Texans, Gov. Abbott's extreme gooberness is now surging across our borders to afflict people in your state. Before we go there, though, ponder his slapstick performance here, where he's been swatting futilely at the fast-moving coronavirus.
First, as a small-minded, small-government zealot, he obsequiously followed Trump's lead of do-nothingism, pretending the bad thing would just drift away. As a result, droves of Texans were dying, so he rushed out to express astonishment and concern. Yet, he cravenly refused to offend his corporate and far-right backers by implementing such life-saving measures as business closures, masks required in public and stay-at-home orders. Worse, the petty, little potentate infuriated local officials by banning them from taking protective actions in their communities.
"It is a policy of what's been called 'moral insanity,' so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!"Bizarrely, Abbott declared he was focused not on preventing infections but on making sure there were enough hospital beds for those who get infected. He might as well have bragged that providing an adequate number of graves was his priority. For sure, enough thousands more Texans were soon dying because of his incompetence.
Finally, the relentless death toll forced Abbott the Absent to enact a stay-at-home mandate ... but he even bungled that by declaring it was not a stay-at-home order! Instead, he called its provisions "Essential Services and Activities Protocols."
Then he got really strange. After banning local officials from requiring mask wearing in public, he playfully hinted that he'd hidden a trick door in that executive order allowing locals to take action--if they could divine the riddle. The trick was that while mayors and others could not require face masks in public, they could require stores, bars offices, factories and other businesses to require masks.
Isn't that fun?! Playing pandemic word games with people's lives. Critics who say Republican leaders have no sense of humor haven't met Greg Abbott.
Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease is presently raging anew in the South and southwest; in rural counties; and among young people who previously felt immune. Despite wishful thinking by corporate-serving public officials, their rush to "open the economy" has led to more infections, deaths, and loss of both jobs and health care among workaday families.
So, gosh, what to do now? Of course! Let's take away the health care coverage of some 23 million Americans!
Backed by Trump & Co., that's the brilliant health care priority being pushed by top Republican officials in 18 states. Led by the mingy Abbott, these GOP-controlled states have chosen in our time of national health crisis to file Texas v. United States, pleading with the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. If they get their way, insurance giants (which are major campaign donors to Abbott and other GOP officials who're pushing the court action) would again be able to gouge customers, boot young people from their parents' coverage and refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions.
It's perverse that any other governor would follow Abbott's lead, for he presides over a health care disaster. Texas has the highest number of uninsured people (including a record number of unprotected children), and his government allows insurance monopolists to engage in such rip-offs as charging higher premiums to women and selling policies that don't cover such basics as childbirth. Killing Obamacare would add another million Texans to the 18% who're already uncovered. Plus, it would not be there for some 3 million other Texans expected to lose their job-based insurance policies during the growing pandemic recession.
That's the health care vision the Texas governor is now trying to force on every state with his lawsuit. It is a policy of what's been called "moral insanity," so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!
However, this intentionally cruel right-wing political maneuver is so unpopular--especially today--that there was no trumpeting of the legal filing by the White House to strike Obamacare. Instead, it was tiptoed over to the court at 10:30 on a Thursday night--with the hopes you and I wouldn't notice.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 Creators Syndicate
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Harking back to the embarrassing days of Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry, my state of Texas is once again saddled with a Republican gubernatorial goober. Greg Abbott is this guy's name, and he's another incompetent right-wing ideologue whose botched handling of our state's COVID-19 crisis makes President Donald Trump look like a master administrator of public health.
Unfortunately for you non-Texans, Gov. Abbott's extreme gooberness is now surging across our borders to afflict people in your state. Before we go there, though, ponder his slapstick performance here, where he's been swatting futilely at the fast-moving coronavirus.
First, as a small-minded, small-government zealot, he obsequiously followed Trump's lead of do-nothingism, pretending the bad thing would just drift away. As a result, droves of Texans were dying, so he rushed out to express astonishment and concern. Yet, he cravenly refused to offend his corporate and far-right backers by implementing such life-saving measures as business closures, masks required in public and stay-at-home orders. Worse, the petty, little potentate infuriated local officials by banning them from taking protective actions in their communities.
"It is a policy of what's been called 'moral insanity,' so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!"Bizarrely, Abbott declared he was focused not on preventing infections but on making sure there were enough hospital beds for those who get infected. He might as well have bragged that providing an adequate number of graves was his priority. For sure, enough thousands more Texans were soon dying because of his incompetence.
Finally, the relentless death toll forced Abbott the Absent to enact a stay-at-home mandate ... but he even bungled that by declaring it was not a stay-at-home order! Instead, he called its provisions "Essential Services and Activities Protocols."
Then he got really strange. After banning local officials from requiring mask wearing in public, he playfully hinted that he'd hidden a trick door in that executive order allowing locals to take action--if they could divine the riddle. The trick was that while mayors and others could not require face masks in public, they could require stores, bars offices, factories and other businesses to require masks.
Isn't that fun?! Playing pandemic word games with people's lives. Critics who say Republican leaders have no sense of humor haven't met Greg Abbott.
Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease is presently raging anew in the South and southwest; in rural counties; and among young people who previously felt immune. Despite wishful thinking by corporate-serving public officials, their rush to "open the economy" has led to more infections, deaths, and loss of both jobs and health care among workaday families.
So, gosh, what to do now? Of course! Let's take away the health care coverage of some 23 million Americans!
Backed by Trump & Co., that's the brilliant health care priority being pushed by top Republican officials in 18 states. Led by the mingy Abbott, these GOP-controlled states have chosen in our time of national health crisis to file Texas v. United States, pleading with the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. If they get their way, insurance giants (which are major campaign donors to Abbott and other GOP officials who're pushing the court action) would again be able to gouge customers, boot young people from their parents' coverage and refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions.
It's perverse that any other governor would follow Abbott's lead, for he presides over a health care disaster. Texas has the highest number of uninsured people (including a record number of unprotected children), and his government allows insurance monopolists to engage in such rip-offs as charging higher premiums to women and selling policies that don't cover such basics as childbirth. Killing Obamacare would add another million Texans to the 18% who're already uncovered. Plus, it would not be there for some 3 million other Texans expected to lose their job-based insurance policies during the growing pandemic recession.
That's the health care vision the Texas governor is now trying to force on every state with his lawsuit. It is a policy of what's been called "moral insanity," so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!
However, this intentionally cruel right-wing political maneuver is so unpopular--especially today--that there was no trumpeting of the legal filing by the White House to strike Obamacare. Instead, it was tiptoed over to the court at 10:30 on a Thursday night--with the hopes you and I wouldn't notice.
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Harking back to the embarrassing days of Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry, my state of Texas is once again saddled with a Republican gubernatorial goober. Greg Abbott is this guy's name, and he's another incompetent right-wing ideologue whose botched handling of our state's COVID-19 crisis makes President Donald Trump look like a master administrator of public health.
Unfortunately for you non-Texans, Gov. Abbott's extreme gooberness is now surging across our borders to afflict people in your state. Before we go there, though, ponder his slapstick performance here, where he's been swatting futilely at the fast-moving coronavirus.
First, as a small-minded, small-government zealot, he obsequiously followed Trump's lead of do-nothingism, pretending the bad thing would just drift away. As a result, droves of Texans were dying, so he rushed out to express astonishment and concern. Yet, he cravenly refused to offend his corporate and far-right backers by implementing such life-saving measures as business closures, masks required in public and stay-at-home orders. Worse, the petty, little potentate infuriated local officials by banning them from taking protective actions in their communities.
"It is a policy of what's been called 'moral insanity,' so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!"Bizarrely, Abbott declared he was focused not on preventing infections but on making sure there were enough hospital beds for those who get infected. He might as well have bragged that providing an adequate number of graves was his priority. For sure, enough thousands more Texans were soon dying because of his incompetence.
Finally, the relentless death toll forced Abbott the Absent to enact a stay-at-home mandate ... but he even bungled that by declaring it was not a stay-at-home order! Instead, he called its provisions "Essential Services and Activities Protocols."
Then he got really strange. After banning local officials from requiring mask wearing in public, he playfully hinted that he'd hidden a trick door in that executive order allowing locals to take action--if they could divine the riddle. The trick was that while mayors and others could not require face masks in public, they could require stores, bars offices, factories and other businesses to require masks.
Isn't that fun?! Playing pandemic word games with people's lives. Critics who say Republican leaders have no sense of humor haven't met Greg Abbott.
Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease is presently raging anew in the South and southwest; in rural counties; and among young people who previously felt immune. Despite wishful thinking by corporate-serving public officials, their rush to "open the economy" has led to more infections, deaths, and loss of both jobs and health care among workaday families.
So, gosh, what to do now? Of course! Let's take away the health care coverage of some 23 million Americans!
Backed by Trump & Co., that's the brilliant health care priority being pushed by top Republican officials in 18 states. Led by the mingy Abbott, these GOP-controlled states have chosen in our time of national health crisis to file Texas v. United States, pleading with the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. If they get their way, insurance giants (which are major campaign donors to Abbott and other GOP officials who're pushing the court action) would again be able to gouge customers, boot young people from their parents' coverage and refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions.
It's perverse that any other governor would follow Abbott's lead, for he presides over a health care disaster. Texas has the highest number of uninsured people (including a record number of unprotected children), and his government allows insurance monopolists to engage in such rip-offs as charging higher premiums to women and selling policies that don't cover such basics as childbirth. Killing Obamacare would add another million Texans to the 18% who're already uncovered. Plus, it would not be there for some 3 million other Texans expected to lose their job-based insurance policies during the growing pandemic recession.
That's the health care vision the Texas governor is now trying to force on every state with his lawsuit. It is a policy of what's been called "moral insanity," so, naturally, Trump rushed to embrace it!
However, this intentionally cruel right-wing political maneuver is so unpopular--especially today--that there was no trumpeting of the legal filing by the White House to strike Obamacare. Instead, it was tiptoed over to the court at 10:30 on a Thursday night--with the hopes you and I wouldn't notice.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.