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January 26th, 2021:

The COVID vaccine wait list

Jan 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
23 comments

Good idea, and about time.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced Monday afternoon a new COVID-19 vaccine waitlist, in an effort to ensure those who are high priority don’t get overlooked and make for a smoother process.

Hidalgo explained the basics of how the waitlist will work. Hidalgo was joined by Dr. Sherri Onyiego, the interim local health authority for Harris County Public Health.

The waitlist is said to be weighted and randomized, meaning the website won’t necessarily favor whoever has the quickest internet connection. Once the portal opens Tuesday, everyone will be able to register.

If you fall under the 1A, 1B or seniors groups, then your registration will be weighted for priority, and it will then be randomized within the priority list.

The launch of this new portal and waitlist expands the previous process by allowing eligible residents to sign up for vaccines on their own directly, according to a press release from the county.

Eligible residents without internet access can also call 832 927-8787 once the portal is live to be placed on the waitlist.

The new system starts today:

That’s a good approach, and honestly it’s how we should be doing this nationwide. I’ve heard plenty of stories of people with good Internet skills or just the right about of persistence and life-hacking who have helped people sign up for vaccines, but it really can’t and shouldn’t be this hard. And honestly, even for the folks like me who are closer to the back of the line, just being able to register now and then wait to be called when it is our turn would likely relieve a lot of anxiety out there. This starts today and if it works as well as I expect it will, I hope other counties will follow suit. The Chron and Houston Public Media have more.

Meanwhile, on a related note.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is pushing the state to refine its criteria for COVID-19 vaccination eligibility, saying that whittling down the list may better prioritize vulnerable Texans and clear up confusion over when shots will actually be available.

The state is currently offering the vaccine to frontline workers and vulnerable Texans, a group of more than 9 million people — even though the state is only receiving about 300,000 doses a week. That numerical reality has made for a confusing and frustrating process for Texans eligible for a shot, with many unable to find available doses or unsure where to look with demand far exceeding supply.

“Texans need to have a better understanding of the time it will take for everyone to be vaccinated in order to reduce lines, confusion and frustration,” Patrick wrote in a Thursday letter to the state’s Expert Vaccination Allocation Panel.

It will probably be May at the earliest before all members of that first priority group have been immunized, said Dr. David Lakey, a member of the state’s vaccine panel, in an interview this week with Hearst Newspapers. The Texans currently eligible are included in groups 1A — health care workers and nursing home residents — and 1B, those over 65 and anyone 16 or older with certain pre-existing medical conditions.

[…]

Patrick suggested creating subgroups within 1B over the next several weeks — perhaps by first taking two weeks to vaccinate those 75 and older, a group of about 1.5 million. Then, he said, a subgroup of roughly 65,000 teachers and school staff over 65 could become eligible.

“This would help give people an idea of reasonable expectations and reduce wait times and frustration each week,” Patrick wrote. “Right now, in many cities and counties when an announcement of available vaccinations is made, website sign-up pages crash and phone calls go unanswered.”

Seems reasonable, and as above it makes you wonder why no one had thought of this before. Including and especially Greg Abbott, who did not come up with this idea despite being the immovable object on everyone’s COVID plans. We’ll see what happens with this.

SCOTx allows Inforwars lawsuits to proceed

Jan 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Good.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday rejected, without comment, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ attempt to toss out four defamation lawsuits by parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.

The parents sued in Travis County, where Jones and his InfoWars website are based, arguing that they were defamed and suffered emotional distress after InfoWars broadcasts disputed the authenticity of the school shooting and the news coverage that followed.

Twenty young children and six adults died in the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Friday’s action by the Supreme Court upheld rulings by two lower courts that had allowed the lawsuits to continue.

The state’s highest civil court also gave the green light to another defamation lawsuit against InfoWars and reporter Kit Daniels by a man mistakenly identified as a suspect in the 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

[…]

Friday’s announcement by the Supreme Court noted that two members, Justices Jeff Boyd and John Devine, would have granted Jones’ petition for review in the Pozner lawsuit, but the court order provided no reasons for their dissent.

In briefs to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Jones argued that the InfoWars host was engaging in protected speech because he was addressing matters of public concern.

“The pursuit of so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ concerning controversial government activities has been a part and parcel of American political discourse since our Founding, and it is protected by the First Amendment,” they told the court in a brief for the Pozner and De La Rosa case.

Jones also argued that state libel laws required any harmful speech to be directed at specific family members, but the Sandy Hook families were not named in three InfoWars reports in 2017.

But a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families argued that Jones didn’t merely say the school shooting was staged by the government, he also generally accused family members of being actors to help sell a supposed coverup and exploit the event to attack gun rights.

As a result, Jones and InfoWars accused family members of collusion in a hoax “relating to the murder of their son … for nefarious purposes,” lawyer Mark Bankston told the court.

Jones also was reckless in publishing information that was so improbable that no reasonable publisher would have done likewise without substantial confirmation, Bankston argued.

“Mr. Jones’ fantasy about a shadowy government conspiracy to murder first-graders and then exploit the event with the help of the media and actors is the very definition of ‘improbable,'” he wrote.

The lawsuits are by the parents of two of the children that were murdered at Sandy Hook. You never know what can happen, but Jones’ record in defending himself so far isn’t great – he not only lost at the Third Court of Appeals earlier in the year, he was ordered to pay court costs for the frivolity of his appeal. He deserves to lose and to have the full weight of the consequences of his actions come down on him. Law and Crime has more.

The “Resign, Ted” caucus

Jan 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

They’re not going to get what they’re asking for, but they can still get something.

Not Ted Cruz

More than 70 Texas organizations are calling for the resignations of Sen. Ted Cruz, Attorney General Ken Paxton and the 16 Texas representatives who voted on Jan. 6 against certifying election results that formalized President Joe Biden’s win.

The grassroots coalition is led by civic engagement group Indivisible TX Lege and includes organizations determined to hold Texas’ elected officials accountable for their role in inspiring and encouraging the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump. More than 850 individuals have also signed a letter in support of the effort to expel the Texas officials.

“They have made a mockery of democracy by embracing the fascist rhetoric of a far-right figurehead with a far-right movement behind him,” the group’s statement reads. “They have suppressed votes while lying about the nature of our election system, sullying our elections while opposing their legally legitimate losses. They have proven themselves entirely unfit for office. They must resign.”

[…]

Many Houston-area groups are among the coalition, including Black Lives Matter Houston, CAIR Houston, Harris County Young Democrats, FIEL Houston, Say Her Name HTX and Sunrise Houston. Texas House Reps. Ron Reynolds and Vikki Goodwin also signed on as supporters of the call for resignations.

“They were perpetuating a fraud,” Reynolds said. “They knew the electoral process was sound, it had already been vetted, it had already been validated, and they were simply attempting to overthrow the will of the American people.”

Candice Matthews of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats said the situation goes “beyond politics.”

“This is about the foundation of our democracy,” she said. “If we sanction these traitors to go back to work and normalize this behavior, we will never get past what happened on Jan. 6.”

All this is correct, but let’s keep some perspective here. The large majority of these organizations are Democratic or Dem-aligned. The chances that Cruz or Paxton or any of those members of Congress will listen to a word they say are less than the chances that I will be named the next head coach of the Texans. I guarantee, there are already fundraising emails in the works about how the radical left is attacking them for their bold and principled stance in favor of election integrity. Don’t expect any sudden vacancies, is what I’m saying.

All these organizations are smart enough to know this, of course. The goal here isn’t resignations, because that’s not going to happen, but to rebrand these politicians and make their seditious actions stick with them. Can they make Cruz and Paxton et al toxic to mainstream corporate America and dry up their fundraising? Can they change how they are covered and portrayed by the media, so that their anti-democratic activity front and center in any story that includes them? Can they help drive this narrative so that less-engaged voters are aware of it, and are aware of the need for them to take action in the next elections? Even if it’s just helping them know that Ted Cruz spends more time Twitter fighting than doing anything to make their lives better? These things are more achievable. That’s the way to think about it, and to think about what you can do to help. There have to be consequences for what they did. This is a part of that, and we all have a role to play in it.