Good morning, 

In tomorrow’s Friday Reflection, I’ll be writing about javelins.

But first, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, August 13, 2020
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• Doctors seeing significant success with alternative treatment therapies to combat the Chinese coronavirus are continuing to run into problems from state agencies. Republican State Sen. Bob Hall told Texas Scorecard’s Brandon Waltens yesterday that there is “no movement” from either the Texas Medical Board or the Texas Pharmacy Board in helping doctors who are facing suppression from federal agencies and multi-national pharmaceutical companies.
     
• “I get incredible pushback from [the medical and pharmacy boards], as if they are little gods over their kingdom, and they’re going to do what the bureaucrats in Washington tell them to do.” – State Sen. Bob Hall

• Doctors seeing significant success with alternative treatment therapies to combat the Chinese coronavirus are continuing to run into problems from state agencies. Republican State Sen. Bob Hall told Texas Scorecard’s Brandon Waltens yesterday that there is “no movement” from either the Texas Medical Board or the Texas Pharmacy Board in helping doctors who are facing suppression from federal agencies and multi-national pharmaceutical companies.
     
• “I get incredible pushback from [the medical and pharmacy boards], as if they are little gods over their kingdom, and they’re going to do what the bureaucrats in Washington tell them to do.” – State Sen. Bob Hall

• In a new commentary, Ross Kecseg explains that – just as conservative activists and grassroots leaders warned – the tax reform promised by Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican lawmakers has actually resulted in higher property tax bills for most homeowners.
     
• Meanwhile, Gov. Abbott’s endorsement helped a challenger defeat an entrenched GOP incumbent in the July primary runoff... but not in the way one might think. Republican State Rep.-elect Bryan Slaton says his successful campaign against incumbent Dan Flynn was aided by Abbott endorsing Flynn.
       
• Anger over the governor’s handling of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, Slaton said on the Luke Macias Show, resulted in “people coming out to the polls, and all over Facebook, ‘I saw the governor endorsed your opponent, you automatically got my vote.’” 
     
• The conservative Slaton garnered 61 percent of the vote against the Abbott-backed Flynn.

• After recent riots swept the nation and left behind a trail of burned cities, destroyed livelihoods, and murdered citizens, Democrat elected officials in Texas’ capital city are now pushing to defund local police and calling upon their “vulgar Marxist” friends to help.  Yes, “vulgar Marxist” is how Austin City Councilman Jimmy Flannigan’s field director describes himself. Read more about what they have planned for Austin residents in an article by Jacob Asmussen. 
      
• “It’s time to take Austin back from the radical Marxists.” – U.S. Rep. Chip Roy
       
• Just over a year after voters rejected a debt-heavy spending proposal as too extravagant, Allen Independent School District officials are proposing a scaled-back bond package that spends about half as much. Erin Anderson reports the district is already nearly $1 billion in debt.

• Under Texas law, a tenth of a percentage point determines whether or not Gov. Greg Abbott is letting a business owner operate, serve customers, and employ Texans.
   
• Both Gov. Abbott and state law seem to favor big corporations over small businesses, as evidenced by his arbitrary decisions the last six months forcing the closure of many locally owned businesses around the state. And nowhere is that more evident than his decision to use the state’s arbitrary alcoholic beverage code to shine favor, or punishment, on similar businesses. 
      
• State law defines the establishment you frequent for dinner with your family as a restaurant or bar depending on whether 50.9% or 51.0% of the revenues are generated from the sale of alcoholic beverages. If it’s the latter, the place where you order a salad, sweet tea, is known for its pepperoni pizza, and supports for the local high school, then it is called a bar. But if it is the former, but designed by corporate honchoes out-of-state to resemble the bar from a TV sitcom in the 1980s, it can be called a restaurant. Confused? You should be.
    
• And under his ongoing rule as a one-man Legislature, Gov. Abbott has decreed that all “bars” must be shuttered but “restaurants” can be open. Even if the “bar” is really a restaurant that’s simply honest about its alcohol sales.
   
• Writing at The Eagle, Reese Oxner reports “Hundreds of Texas bars and restaurants are scrambling to change how they operate, maneuvering through loopholes that will allow them to reopen after being closed by Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest shutdown.”
   
• That similar businesses are being treated vastly differently by Gov. Abbott under his coronavirus power grab will be one of the questions with which lawmakers will undoubtedly be forced to grapple in the 2021 legislative session. 
   
• Last month, 65 members of the Texas Senate and House signed a letter asking Abbott to redefine his order related to restaurants and bars, making it less arbitrary so more could get back to business. The governor – as has been his custom throughout the coronavirus situation – has thus far ignored the lawmakers’ pleas on behalf of their constituents.

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