Good morning!

How many Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus? How many have died? Most Americans are way off in their estimation of the facts.

But first, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Tuesday, August 11, 2020
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UP FRONT: Correcting a line from yesterday... Denton County surpassed Montgomery County in the number of Republican voters participating in the 2020 primary, making it the largest and most populous GOP county in the state. (Both counties’ Republican executive committees have censured Gov. Greg Abbott.)

• Since March, when Gov. Greg Abbott began to issue executive orders in light of the Chinese coronavirus, he largely barred residents in nursing homes and other state-assisted living facilities from visitation with their family members. Brandon Waltens reports that announced changes to visitation rules in state-assisted living facilities are welcome, but activists say they are far from enough.
      
• For example, a West Texas woman has been barred from being with her husband for more than 136 days. Robert Montoya writes about Carol and John Waggoner, who have been married for 56 years but have been denied the right to see each other. Mr. Waggoner is a retired veteran of the U.S. Air Force suffering from the effects of dementia.
     
• “My husband and I both are depressed, isolated, and declining. Will we ever get to see each other for a hug, to hold a hand, or give a kiss again before one of us dies?” – Carol Waggoner in a letter to Gov. Abbott
     

• Keeping ailing, elderly spouses apart is cruel, perhaps most especially when it is being done in the name of government protecting them.
     

• Odessa city councilman and banker Dewey Bryant is named in a civil lawsuit alleging a “Ponzi-style fraud scheme” that totaled over $13 million. Matt Stringer has the details. 
       
• Come next year, some children in one San Antonio-area school district will be enrolled at Joe Straus Middle School, named for the disgraced former Speaker of the Texas House. The decision was made in June by the board of trustees in the Northside Independent School District, the largest school district in the San Antonio area and the fourth-largest in the state.
     
• Maybe Joe Straus Middle School will be known as the RINOs?

• Want a political party that doesn’t champion conservative thought? State Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio) penned a commentary titled “We Need To Get Rid Of The Two-Party System” in the Galveston County Daily News – nearly 300 miles away from his heavily GOP-dominated district. He says he wants a new “independent” party unmoored from ideological principles. 
   
• Larson’s voting record puts him as one of the least conservative, and most liberal, Republicans in the Legislature. That he wants a political party bereft of ideas and principles shouldn’t by too surprising.
     
• Brandon Waltens reports Larson’s commentary has drawn condemnation from State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), the former chairman of the Texas House GOP Caucus.
     
• “Put your money where your mouth is and if you want to run as an independent, run as an independent.” – State Rep. Burrows to Rep. Larson

• Urban Reform’s Charles Blain has written a commentary about polling data that shows the vast majority of Black Americans want police, and better interactions with them.
   
• “Residents in these communities aren’t typically armed, nor do they have money for private security or contract deputy programs like other communities do. They absolutely rely on local law enforcement, and as taxpayers, they should get it.” – Charles Blain