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As COVID-19 again fills San Antonio hospital beds, local leaders are begging residents to get vaccinated. At press time, more than 1,000 people hospitalized here fighting the virus, including an 11-month-old, and medical facilities are pushing back elective surgeries. “If you have any concern about your fellow citizens and the children who are going to be going back to school, I urge you to [get vaccinated],” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said.
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A federal judge has blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order asking state troopers to pull over vehicles they suspect of transporting migrants who “pose a risk” of transmitting COVID-19. U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone granted the Justice Department’s request for a restraining order and wrote that Abbott’s order likely interferes with federal immigration law.
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Much-loved San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills, the lone remaining member of the team’s 2014 championship lineup, has departed to sign with the Brooklyn Nets. Mills, 32, played in San Antonio for a decade — endearing himself to the city with his steadfast support for social justice causes, most notably last summer, when he donated $1 million of his salary to Black Lives Matter groups. The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts has launched a new discount program for members of the armed forces. Active-duty members, retirees, veterans and their families will be eligible for discounted and free tickets to a variety of shows and events under the new program. To become eligible, current and former military personnel need only register on the center’s website and provide a copy of their Defense Department identification or a Certificate of Release or Discharge. — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
“[Y]ou’ll hear the president convey later if you are not going to be a part of the solution, if you’re not going to be a part of saving people’s lives, then get out of the way and let other people do the job.”
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That Rocks/That Sucks
Twitter / @FloorCharts
When it comes to the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, Sen. Ted Cruz wanted to have it both ways. One one hand, the Texas Republican delivered a fiery speech last Thursday warning fellow GOP lawmakers the legislation would spur runaway inflation and that it was those sneaky Dems’ “down payment” on the Green New Deal. “This is reckless, and it’s unprecedented. As Admiral Ackbar said in Star Wars, ‘It’s a trap.’ This is a trap,” the pop culture-obsessed Cruz said, citing a line from Return of the Jedi. However, two days before aiming his rhe-
torical blaster at the infrastructure bill, Cruz pushed to make the future Interstate 14 — which would extend from West Texas through the Eastern U.S. — a top priority project in the legislation, the Houston Chronicle reports. Indeed, the famously partisan Cruz even worked across the aisle with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, to add the expansion as an amendment. So, what gives? Turns out the expanded highway would connect Texas’ oil-rich Permian Basin with the Port of Savannah, the third-largest U.S. port, and Cruz is one of the Senate’s top recipients of cash from the oil and gas industry. Such cozy relationships with industry are par for the course in Washington, and those contributions don’t necessarily prove Cruz’s motivations. But it sure looks like the assclown is trying to throw red meat to his ideological base while delivering a big wet kiss to his backers. No one said subtlety is one of Cruz’s strong suits. — Sanford Nowlin
The year’s second special session of the Texas Legislature kicked off last Saturday with an expanded, 17-item agenda that now includes the dissemination of federal COVID-19 relief funds and potential changes to the body’s quorum rules. Texas Democrats are still in Washington, D.C., where they have been campaigning for voting rights legislation, and the special session cannot proceed without them. Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to continue calling special sessions until they return to the state.
PETA is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to penalize a San Antonio laboratory after 159 baboons it was holding in captivity suffered amputations due to frostbite from February’s winter storm. Texas Biomedical Research Institute, located in far west San Antonio, receives federal funding to maintain a colony of some 2,500 primates, which it uses to test disease treatments. The USDA is reviewing PETA’s complaint.
ASSCLOWN ALERT
Having It Both Ways With Ted Cruz Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
— Jen Psaki,
White House Press Secretary when asked how much responsibility Gov. Greg Abbott has for rising COVID-19 numbers in the state. Courtesy Photo / Office of the Governor
Another Republican who mocked COVID-19 mask mandates and vaccines has died of the virus. H Scott Apley, a Texas Republican Party leader who served as a city councilman in the town of Dickinson and was a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, died in a hospital last Wednesday after being on a ventilator. As recently as the Friday before his death, he shared a meme arguing against the effectiveness of vaccines. — Abe Asher
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