Editorial Roundup: Texas

Houston Chronicle. March 2, 2021.

Editorial: Ending COVID restrictions, Abbott plays politics with Texans’ lives

The governor says it, so it must be true.

Texans, in the words of Gov. Greg Abbott Tuesday, have “mastered” the safe daily habits that prevent the contraction and spread of COVID-19.

Through Texans’ tireless efforts to obey public health guidelines and follow the governor’s statewide mask mandate, the pandemic is abating in the state, saving not only lives, but also allowing Abbott to slip the onerous bonds of responsibility and leave the fate of millions of our fellow Texans in the capable hands of the vigilant citizens of Texas.

“Texans have wrestled with COVID, and they have learned best how to conduct their own lives,” Abbott said in a press conference in Lubbock. “State mandates are no longer needed.”

Keep up the good work.

We’re all going to need it after Abbott announced Tuesday that starting March 10, his pandemic-related restrictions will be lifted, allowing all Texas businesses to open at 100 percent capacity - yes, even bars and movie theaters, if they decide to do so. The economic case for allowing struggling businesses to reopen, restoring livelihoods and saving untold Texans from financial ruin is clear, but the move carries unacceptably high risk.

How in the Hill Country is lifting the state’s mask requirement instituted in July good for business? How is it good for any of us, save those who are more concerned with the slight discomfort of a piece of cloth across their face than the life and death consequences of a deadly disease?

Abbott is actually hurting businesses by taking away their validation for requiring customers to don masks: it’s state law. Now, businesses are on their own in trying to get Billy Bob to comply with basic safety protocols.

More importantly, Abbott is gambling with people’s lives - again. Much as he did when the state reopened back in May to disastrous results, he has decided that politics outweigh the need to safeguard public health. More than 42,000 Texans have died of COVID-19.

It is irresponsible to ease restrictions now. Even if the odds are better this time, more Texans will get sick and more Texans will die.

We know very well how we got to the point where a life-saving face mask became a political statement, but we won’t digress. Abbott is either gravely disingenuous or willfully ignorant about the behaviors of people in his own state when he claims everybody has “mastered’ mask-wearing. For some, it’s a political statement to refuse. For your run-of-the-mill gas station clerk in rural Texas, it’s just something city folk do.

Abbott is playing to his base, as evidenced by the cheers he got at the press conference announcing the changes on Tuesday. A welcome distraction, at least for the governor, from the power crisis fiasco that continues to roil the state.

Abbott is right that the situation today is different than a year ago. Today, there is plenty of personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves, there is ample testing capacity and treatment for COVID-19 has improved significantly. Most importantly there are now vaccines that protect from the worst of the pandemic.

Texans have already received more than 5.7 million vaccines, Abbott said. By next week, when restrictions are lifted, that number will be closer to 7 million, with about half of seniors having received their first dose.

That is all good news, but it is the blind exuberance that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned about this week, asking states not to loosen restrictions.

“Please hear me clearly. At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” Rochelle Walensky said Monday. “Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know could stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close.”

After consistent improvement with declining numbers, the latest weekly rolling average showed new cases and deaths in the U.S. both rising by 4 percent. More than 514,000 people have died from COVID in the United States as of Tuesday.

Abbott also made sure that local officials’ hands are tied, expressly prohibiting county judges from using the threat of jail to enforce restrictions or allowing any penalty for not wearing a mask. County judges can re-implement restrictions only if COVID patients make up more than 15 percent hospital capacity in their hospital region for seven straight days.

Allowing preventative measures to be enforced only after people are so sick that they are overrunning hospitals and pushing doctors and nurses to their breaking points is political malpractice.

“This is not the time to promote more infections, to promote more hospitalizations, to promote more deaths for the sake of political expediency,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.

Once again, Abbott is trying to pass off a failure of governance as respect for personal freedom, to peddle sacrifice as a viable answer to restoring normalcy.

“We will continue to grieve for all who have suffered through this pandemic,” Abbott said. “And we will always mourn the loss of all lives.”

Texas doesn’t need Abbott’s grief - there is enough to go around. We need his leadership to keep more people from dying. Scrapping the mask mandate, which helps businesses stay open by slowing the virus’ spread, is likely to do the opposite.

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San Antonio Express-News. March 5, 2021.

Editorial: Leadership in Texas fails character test

If we have learned anything over the past year, it’s that adversity reveals the true character of leaders.

Since this is Texas, this lesson means recognizing we have elected state officials driven by self-interest, not the public’s interest, at apparently any cost. They are ill-equipped to lead and, in many instances, undeserving of their posts.

Without shame, indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced the Big Lie of election fraud to subvert our democracy. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has used his authority to castigate and demonize transgender children. In a moment of crisis, Sen. Ted Cruz, another Big Lie enabler, jetted off to Cancún, Mexico, only to quickly return as a freezing public burned with outrage. And then there is Gov. Greg Abbott, a man who knows better - or should know better - and always plays the angles.

This is a governor who has reopened Texas “100 percent” and rescinded a mask mandate, putting Texans at risk of COVID-19, and then has the nerve to tag the spread of COVID-19 to illegal immigration, tweeting (because this is how politicians “speak” and express “thoughts” now), “The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas.”

An aside on Abbott’s decision to reopen so soon: Masks and vaccines are our two best weapons in the war against COVID. Since when do Texans voluntarily disarm during a fight? Apparently on Wednesday when Abbott’s order takes effect.

Unexceptional bravado is a hallmark of Texas exceptionalism, and politicians here have a long history of touting the Lone Star State as business-friendly. That’s true if we are looking through the narrow lens of corporate relocations, lax regulations and population growth, but the winter freeze has punctured this aura of Texas as a business mecca.

Businesses need stability. They need to know the lights will stay on in a crisis and costs are not just low but predictable. This did not happen. For days. Instead, people were scooping water from the River Walk - the River Walk! - to flush toilets

The total cost of this natural disaster, magnified by a fierce allegiance to deregulation, poor oversight and failure to winterize power sources, could reach $50 billion. In San Antonio, where hundreds of thousands of residents went without power, water or both, CPS Energy has said it cost about $1 billion to keep the power running - for some of the city.

While the cost of the storm will be negotiated and litigated, as well as mitigated by state lawmakers and federal aid, some portion of the bill will fall to Texans. It is a legacy of failure

Beyond stability and predictability, businesses and everyday Texans also need elected leaders who show nonpartisan grit and unfailing devotion to the public. This precludes quick family trips to Mexico to warm up, or appearances on Fox News with Sean Hannity to speak falsely about renewable energy and the supposed horrors of the Green New Deal.

Businesses and everyday Texans also need state leaders who prioritize health and well-being. Abbott’s decision to reopen Texas and rescind his mask mandate is a slap in the face to health care workers and medical experts. But should we be surprised? This is a governor who has refused to expand Medicaid, even though the state’s uninsured rate stood at 18.4 percent before the pandemic.

Expanding Medicaid isn’t a radical position. Texas is one of 12 states that has failed to do this. And recent polling from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs found 69 percent of respondents support expanding Medicaid. Doing so would extend coverage to 1 million low-income Texans.

And as state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, has argued, the federal government will cover 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion. “You take all the politics out of it, it’s really a bad business decision not to access the federal dollars,” he said.

But that’s just the problem. Our elected leaders have demonstrated “the politics” will never be taken “out of it.” And this is how Texans freeze in the dark, fight over masks in a pandemic, scoop water from the River Walk to flush toilets, or live and die without access to health care.

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Amarillo Globe-News. March 5, 2021.

Editorial: Be prepared for upcoming severe weather season

The early word is this year’s tornado season could be more active and severe than in years past – just the kind of news people across West Texas want to hear following a year of pandemic and a recent winter storm of frightening intensity.

Be that as it may, the arrival of March means spring is just around the corner. Spring in West Texas often means intense thunderstorms accompanied by hail and, in some cases, tornadoes. According to our recent story, the 2021 severe weather season has the potential to be especially ominous.

Some of this is a result of the ongoing La Nina climate pattern in which ocean water in the central Pacific is cooler than average, impacting weather patterns here and beyond during the late fall, winter and early spring.

AccuWeather meteorologists say La Nina could lead to the same kind of tornado activity experienced in 2011, a year in which more than 550 Americans were killed by tornadoes. “The temperature of the water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific during February 2021 is similar to the La Nina pattern in February 2011,” Paul Pastelok, an AccuWeather meteorologist, said in our story.

It was 10 years ago that hundreds of tornadoes were reported in April alone. That also was the year of the devastating Joplin, Missouri, twister that killed more than 150 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

There already has been dangerous tornado activity this year. The winter storm system that brought freezing weather across Texas in mid-February produced an outbreak of tornadoes in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina in which three people were killed. Also, a strong tornado led to one death in Alabama in late January. Both occurred in late-night hours and were not part of a larger severe-weather system as is the case many times, according to information from The Weather Channel.

All of this to say tornado season has become more than a regular springtime threat, and the way conditions are lining up, preparation and awareness will be as important as ever. If history is any indicator, tornado chances in this part of the country begin increasing in March and are highest from April through June, according to Weather.com.

According to our recent story, a 2015 study found that what is considered to be a fairly strong La Nina pattern leads to more tornadoes and hailstorms in portions of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and elsewhere in the southern United States. That study, the findings of which were reinforced by a separate effort two years later, found La Nina concentrates hot, humid air over the southern part of the country with heat and humidity over the southern Plains states leading to conditions favorable for producing intense storms.

While some private meteorological organizations have issued their predictions, the federal government’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has not. Such predictions are not meant to create fear, but to prompt awareness.

West Texans are more than a little familiar with tornadoes and the damage they can cause. Toward that end, we offer these tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for safety during a tornado. Prepare a plan and emergency kit with important information; stay aware of weather conditions through local TV and radio stations or NOAA weather radio; and know ahead of time where to shelter.

Tornadoes are unpredictable, which makes them even more dangerous. Planning now can make an incredible difference later.

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Dallas Morning News. March, 3, 3031.

Editorial: Methodists helping Muslims - This is what faith in Texas is all about. In Denton, they’re taking “love thy neighbor” seriously

Crises often create bad news. There’s plenty to go around in the wake of last month’s winter storm. But crises can also reveal just how strong, connected and morally good our communities are. In that vein, we point our attention northward to highlight the good neighbors at First United Methodist Church of Denton who started a fundraising campaign last week to pay for repairs at nearby Islamic Society of Denton.

According to the GoFundMe site, pipes burst at the Islamic center during the storm. A video shows a ceiling collapsing and water flooding the facility. First United Methodist is about a mile and a half away, and within a day church folks had started fundraising. Since then, Islamic Society of Denton board president Faraz Qureshi said, donations have been coming in from all over the world. As of Tuesday morning, they totaled $57,810.

“Your friends at First United Methodist Church of Denton and Open Worship are with you,” wrote FUMC pastor Jonathan Perry on the GoFundMe website. “We send you prayers and love and support. Please let us know how we can help further. As-salamu alaykum!”

Qureshi told WFAA reporter Eric Alvarez that the gesture has strengthened his faith in his Christian neighbors.

“We know what’s been going on in the last few years, just some of the extremism hate that you see, and so it can sometimes color your perception,” Qureshi said. “So speaking on behalf of myself personally, it restores your faith in people. It’s really heartwarming to see.”

There will always be critics of doing the right thing. Amazingly, that’s the case here. One local pundit even took to the talk radio airwaves to explain how Christians should love their Muslim neighbors but not in a tangible way like raising money for repairs. We disagree. In fact, we would say a gift says as much about its giver as its recipient. In the oft-repeated saying attributed to Catholic workers, “We don’t help others because they are Christians, but because we are.”

The truth is, as often as bad news dominates in times of trouble, North Texas is full of thousands of stories like this one in which neighbors look out for neighbors, even if they’re divided by religion, race or politics. And sometimes a little help can rebuild more than busted pipes.

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