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Fortunately, many citizens in these states and others in the region are determined to keep themselves and their children safe, even if their leaders keep undermining those efforts at every turn.

No sooner had Mr. Lee signed his executive order than Dr. Sara Cross, a Memphis physician on his own Covid task force, issued a public statement decrying his decision. I fear for my 6-year-old daughter, she said in a video. Opting out of wearing masks is putting all of our children in harms way.

In Texas, the families of 14 children with disabilities have filed a federal lawsuit against Mr. Abbott and the Texas Education Agency commissioner, Mike Morath, arguing that the ban on school mask mandates puts their children in peril. (Texas has paused the enforcement of its ban, pending the resolution of several legal challenges.)

Here in Music City, the pushback against state leaders began, naturally enough, with musicians and music venues. For people whose work brings them into contact with thousands of strangers, this is not a political issue; its a life-or-death issue.

Nashville has so far issued neither a mask mandate nor a vaccine mandate for businesses operating here, but theres an ever-growing list of music venues that require proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test to enter, including the massive Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tenn. The musician Jason Isbell now requires proof of vaccination or a negative test to attend his shows, wherever they are held. Im all for freedom, but I think if youre dead, you dont have any freedoms at all, he told MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Tennessees two largest school districts Metro Nashville Public Schools and Shelby County Schools continue to enforce their mask mandates in defiance of the governors executive order, and Nashvilles district attorney, Glenn Funk, has said that he will not prosecute school officials or teachers for keeping children safe. Some Tennessee pastors are encouraging other districts to defy the ban, too: Im well aware of what we are asking, the Rev. Lillian Lammers told The Tennesseans Brett Kelman. There were many times in the Bible where Jesus broke the law in order to feed people or care for people, as a way of teaching others that sometimes the law can get in the way of doing what is right.

That message of civil disobedience seems to be resonating across the South.

Last week, the school board of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Floridas largest school district, and school districts in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, and Palm Beach County, voted to approve mask mandates in open defiance of Mr. DeSantiss ban. And they did so despite the threat of penalties leveled by the Florida state board of education against board members and superintendents in Broward and Alachua Counties, which had already established mask mandates.

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Opinion | Republicans Have Gone Too Far in the Region Hit Hardest by Covid - The New York Times

President BidenJoe BidenUS intel report on COVID-19 origins inconclusive: WaPo NBC correspondent: History will remember Afghan withdrawal as 'very dark period' Overnight Defense & National Security: Outcry over Biden's Afghanistan deadline MOREs job performance is making him the most serious political threat to Democrats election chances in 2022. Its almost as if Biden is a GOP secret weapon, ensuring that Republicans retake control of the House and Senate.

Its not just Bidens mishandling of multiple crises; its the way hes mishandling them. Flip-flops, contradictions, denials, blame shifting, political tone-deafness and refusal to concede facts not to mention a kind of spacy-ness in his public responses. For example:

The Afghanistan withdrawal disaster: Biden sold himself as one of the countrys top foreign policy experts, one who would restore Americas standing in the world and among our allies. Hows that going, Joe?

Even many Democrats, both elected and former political appointees and policy experts, are criticizing the president.

NATO allies are appalled at the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, which threatens their own credibility and the safety of their citizens. And allies increasingly wonder whether they can depend on the U.S. if a military threat arises.

For example, China is hinting that Afghanistan proves the U.S. would not stand up for Taiwan should the Chinese invade. And after the Afghanistan debacle, whos to say they would?

And there are the recurring headlines and pictures of Islamic jihadists who are cheering the Talibans defeat of the worlds greatest military power.

You know its bad when even the mainstream media have begun highlighting Biden and his administrations misstatements, contradictions, errors and flip-flops.

The past few weeks have understandably lowered the publics already timid confidence in Bidens ability and fitness to do the job of president. And that skepticism is likely to affect Democratic campaigns.

COVID-19 surges: As a presidential candidate, Biden claimed thousands of Americans were dying because President TrumpDonald TrumpSupreme Court rebuffs Biden over Trump-era 'Remain in Mexico' policy Judge declares mistrial in Michael Avenatti embezzlement case Herschel Walker files paperwork to run for Senate in Georgia MORE mishandled the pandemic. Biden assured us he had a plan to turn it around.

While Trump surely made mistakes, so did other world leaders which is exactly what you would expect when a new, not-well-understood virus arises. But Trump also got some things right, including the governments backing for pharmaceutical manufacturers efforts to create a COVID-19 vaccine in record time.

Biden inherited that success and has largely tried to take credit for it. The declining number of COVID-19 cases over the spring and early summer is one of the reasons for the publics generally favorable opinion of the Biden presidency.

But COVID cases and deaths are rising again, and many hospitals are filling up or are already full. If Biden has a plan to slow or stop the spread as he claimed as a candidate where is it? All hes been able to do so far is double down on what has been done: encourage vaccinations and urge mask wearing and social distancing.

Hopefully the delta variant peaks soon and we begin to see a decline in new cases and deaths and the lambda or some other variant doesnt take its place. But if the virus continues its spread, it will make Biden look as feckless as he appears on TV.

Inflation fears: A recent The Hill-HarrisX poll revealed that inflation is the top economic concern on voters minds: 31 percent of registered voters. The national debt came in second at 22 percent. Thus, over half of voters see inflation and the national debt as the biggest economic challenges.

Only 9 percent said they werent concerned about the economy.

Inflation is real. It may be temporary as Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jerome Powell keeps telling us but consumers are seeing it daily.

Bidens big-spending push means that Democrats will own any negative economic blowback if inflation explodes. Even if voters see some benefits from the government spending spree and inflation pressures ease, those benefits likely wont be felt much before the 2022 elections.

Illegal immigration chaos: Perhaps the only good news out of Bidens Afghanistan withdrawal disaster is that those heart-rending TV images have replaced the images of near-record numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border.

The Pew Research Center reports, The U.S. Border Patrol reported nearly 200,000 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in July, the highest monthly total in more than two decades.

Again, the facts on the ground have completely contradicted the Biden administrations continued spin its a challenge not a crisis, they insist and everyone knows it.

This is just a short list. Democrats are on the wrong side of a number of other very important issues (e.g., defund the police) that will come back to bite them in the 2022 elections.

Numerous reports claim that Biden believes he will survive his Afghanistan debacle because voters care more about the economy than Afghanistan.

But voters do care about the lives and safety of the U.S. military, U.S. credibility in the world and the rising threat of terrorism. And all of those issues are intertwined with his mishandling of Afghanistan.

Even if the Afghanistan withdrawal fades in the media, theres still COVID-19, the southern border crisis and rising inflation none of which are moving in Bidens favor.

Fortunately for Biden, he doesnt have to face the voters again until 2024. Unfortunately for Biden, his actions likely mean he will have to face a Republican Congress in January 2023.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.

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Joe Biden: Republicans' secret weapon for retaking Congress | TheHill - The Hill

About a dozen House GOP lawmakers introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling for the Pentagon inspector general to conduct an investigation into the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), asks that the Pentagon inspector general look into three areas of the U.S. withdrawal mission: how U.S. equipment including Humvees, helicopters, artillery and drones ended up in the Talibans possession, the extent to which Afghan forces who had U.S. equipment entered Iran with the technology and the effectiveness of the evacuation of U.S. citizens and allied personnel from Afghanistan.

The lawmakers asked that the report be submitted to Congressno later than 90 days upon the resolution's passing and calls for recommendations to legislative action.

If the President of the United States is not going to be straight with the American people, all while American lives are being left in Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban, then Congress has both the moral and constitutional obligation to demand accountability of any and all Biden Administration officials who deliberately put American lives at risk, Gimenez wrote in a statement announcing the resolution.

He accused Biden of making categorically false statements to the American people on a number of topics, including the security and preparedness of the U.S. embassy in Kabul for the withdrawal, reports of no al Qaeda militants being in Afghanistan, that U.S. allies are "not questioning the President's judgement" and changing readouts with our most important allies.

The resolution comes as the Biden administration is facing heat from both sides of the aisle regarding his decision to pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The withdrawal mission led to a crisis in Afghanistan, with Afghan security forces quickly deteriorating amid an increased offensive by the Taliban.

GOP lawmakers have been especially critical of Biden in the wake of the situation in Afghanistan. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) called on Biden to resign immediately on Monday, following the lead of Reps. Jefferson Van Drew (R-N.J.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

A number of congressional committees have already signaled that they plan to hold hearings regarding the Afghanistan withdrawal, where a number of administration officials will likely be grilled about thechaotic exit.

The administration is now working to evacuate all remaining American citizens and Afghan allies from the country as the security situation continues to worsen.

Rep. Liz CheneyElizabeth (Liz) Lynn CheneyHouse Republicans call for inspector general investigation of Afghanistan troop withdrawal Press: Why is Mo Brooks still in the House? 3 in 4 say removal of US troops from Afghanistan has gone badly: poll MORE (R-Wyo.), a co-sponsor of the resolution calling for an inspector general investigation and a critic of the U.S. withdrawal process, said such a probe is critical.

The American people deserve answers about how and why the Biden Administration went forward with this approach when it was clear that the fallout would jeopardize the safety of Americans still in Afghanistan, endanger our Afghan partners who have fought alongside us for two decades, and threaten our broader national security interests, Cheney said in a statement.

This is a critical investigation and I urge my colleagues to support it so we can learn the truth about how this unfolded and ensure our country never makes such a catastrophic mistake again, she added.

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House Republicans call for inspector general investigation of Afghanistan troop withdrawal | TheHill - The Hill

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Texas House Republicans finally got their long-sought quorum Thursday by the skin of their teeth.

There were 99 members registered as present Thursday evening, the exact number needed to end the 38-day Democratic quorum break over the GOPs priority elections bill. But it quickly became clear that some of the 99 members were not physically on the floor and instead marked present by their colleagues.

That means that the House could be operating with a tenuous quorum in the coming days, even if more Democrats start returning though none were giving any indication of that Friday.

While some Democrats conceded Thursday night that the quorum bust was over, others were less willing to admit defeat.

Based on numerous media reports, it seems evident there was not a true quorum present today ironic, given this entire session is premised around Republicans preaching about so-called voter integrity, Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

A group of 34 House Democrats released a statement Friday that called it a questionable quorum and warned that Republicans will lie about the number of legislators present at the Capitol to establish quorum, keep Texans in the dark, and bend the rules to get their way.

In a follow-up interview, Turner said the apparent lack of a real quorum was of grave concern. He declined to speculate on whether the Democratic presence on the floor would grow when the House nexts meets on Monday.

Publicly, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beamont, is not showing any concern over the durability of the quorum going forward.

Speaker Phelan appreciates the growing number of members who are fighting for their districts in the State Capitol, Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez said in a one-sentence statement for this story.

It is certainly possible that enough Democrats return to the floor in the near future that any uncertainty over the threshold is put to rest. The next opportunity for any returning Democrat to show up is when the House meets next at 4 p.m. Monday.

The first Democrat quorum bust happened in the final hours of the regular session in May, when members filed out of the chamber to block the final passage of a GOP voting bill. They upped the ante in July when more than 50 members boarded a plane and fled to Washington, D.C., for the duration of the first special session and continued to refuse to show up at the Capitol for the first few weeks of the second special session, which began Aug. 7.

The GOP elections bill would, among other things, outlaw local voting options intended to expand voting access and bolster access for partisan poll watchers. Democrats and voting rights advocates say it restricts voting rights in the state. Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, say the proposal is intended to secure election integrity.

One of the Democrats who is still in Washington, D.C., Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, said he anticipates that maybe half of the remaining Democrats will return to the floor in the coming days while he and others will remain in Washington to continue their fight for federal voting rights legislation.

Im very disappointed, Reynolds said. Were disappointed that we had some members of the Democratic caucus return without a consensus, without a unified front.

Reynolds said he intends to stay in the nations capital at least through next week, when the U.S. House is expected to vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. He is still deciding what to do after that.

If the quorum margin continues to remain on the razors edge, Republicans cannot afford to have any absences and would have to continue showing up unanimously or close to it. They proved they were willing to go to those lengths Thursday with the attendance of Rep. Steve Allison of San Antonio, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and registered as present while isolating in an adjacent room.

Allison tested negative Thursday and plans to be on the floor Monday and the following days that lawmakers are in session, according to his chief of staff, Rocky Gage.

The House cant do business without a quorum, which is two-thirds of the chamber, a threshold that stands at 100 when all 150 seats are filled. With two vacant seats pending special elections to replace former state Reps. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, who is now in Congress, and Leo Pacheco, D-San Antonio, who resigned effective Thursday to work for San Antonio College, quorum threshold is currently 99.

The special election for Ellzeys seat is Aug. 31, though it could go to a runoff at a later date. And the special election for Pachecos seat has not been scheduled yet.

The 99 members who effectively make up the current quorum include all 82 Republicans; 14 Democrats who, before Thursday, had never broken quorum or had already chosen to return to the floor; and three new Democratic defectors who announced their arrival shortly before quorum was met Thursday evening: Houston Reps. Armando Walle, Ana Hernandez and Garnet Coleman.

Without a mass return of the remaining Democrats, reaching a quorum in the coming days could still be a dicey proposition.

That is, of course, if House leaders actually count how many members are physically present something they have no incentive to do as they seek to put the quorum break in the past. Any member present can request strict enforcement of a vote, which would force a more accurate attendance count, but that did not happen Thursday.

Who is asking for strict enforcement? one of the Democrats still breaking quorum, Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, tweeted shortly before the House met and quorum was established.

It is unclear what incentive the members who are showing up have to call for strict enforcement they are mostly Republicans who are eager to get back to work and move past the quorum break. The same could arguably be said of the Democrats who have been present.

Reynolds said he is optimistic that as the Democratic numbers on the floor continue to grow, there will be more potential for strict enforcement.

We were disappointed that didnt happen yesterday, Reynolds said. But hopefully, as we go forward as a group, some of the returning members will agree to do that. I think theres already been a consensus of the members that are returning that are willing to do that.

Disclosure: San Antonio College has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas House finally makes quorum, but Democrats say Republicans cheated to get there - The Texas Tribune

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is not only fighting a COVID-19 infectionhes also on the front lines of a clash within conservatism. The Republican has declared his state the Freedom Capital of America. He has consistently prioritized cutting regulations on business, and in a 2018 opinion column boasted, Innovation and self-reliance are deeply rooted in the Lone Star State, and when freed from the stranglehold of over taxation and overregulation, new ideas flourish. By limiting senseless government restrictions, the opportunity to succeed in business is as limitless as the land itself.

The pandemic has given Abbott new avenues to push for freedoms. Abbott has, for example, barred state agencies and organizations that receive state funding from requiring vaccines for consumers. We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public healthand we will do so without treading on Texans personal freedoms, Abbott said in a statement in April.

The public-health wisdom of this position is dubious, but it is consistent with the idea of limiting government restraints. Whats confusing is a bill that Abbott signed in June, which bans businesses from requiring customers to be vaccinated. With rising concern about, and case counts from, the Delta variant, the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission issued a warning on August 12 declaring that restaurants and bars that ask customers to show proof of vaccination might have their liquor licenses revoked.

Politicians who ban mask mandates and vaccine passports are not actually anti-government, as it might seem, but simply have a different view about how government should wield its power. Texas Republicans are caught between maximizing personal freedom (such as the freedom of patrons to vaccinate themselves, or not, and go to any business) and remaining opposed to government mandates on business (such as allowing private establishments to run their own affairs, freed from the stranglehold of regulation). Forced to choose between their stated commitments to individual and business freedom, Abbott and his allies in the state legislature chose individuals.

Although competing visions exist for where the conservative movement should be headed, they share a common bedrock: defending and expanding liberty. The tension that the coronavirus pandemic has uncovered is between what kinds of liberty to defend, and for whoma conflict that pits the freedom of people to choose whether they are vaccinated against the freedom of others to avoid sharing private spaces with the unvaccinated.

David A. Graham: Mitch McConnell learns it isnt personalits strictly business

Its wild to see conservatives hankering to place restrictions on private business, Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan (and an Atlantic contributor), told me.

The clash here is not merely a split between the traditional progressive focus on liberty as the ability to achieve ones potential and the conservative emphasis on negative liberty, or the lack of restraints imposed by government on citizens. (Of course, the conservative movement has not always extended this devotion to negative liberty to everyone, especially LGBTQ people and those wanting an abortion.) Contemporary American conservatives have followed a small-government philosophy and have tended to treat negative liberty as something that applies equally to individuals and to groups of them: Corporations are people, my friend, Mitt Romney said in 2011. Conservative judges have issued rulings that have extended protection of religious freedom and free speech, in the guise of political giving, to corporations. COVID-19 has shown, once again, that individuals and corporations interests are not always aligned.

This split comes amid a broader tension between American businesses and conservative politicians. In recent years, a growing number of corporations have spoken out on social issues, including support for LGBTQ rights and voting access. These positions are not necessarily signs that big business has transformed into woke capital, as some conservatives claim; rather, they represent entrepreneurs making judgments about what is best for their bottom line, having considered the views of employees, investors, and companies. Republican politiciansmost prominently Mitch McConnellhave howled with anger that companies are criticizing them after years of the GOP serving business interests.

But Texass anti-vaccine-passport law, and those like it in other states, show that the betrayals cut both ways. Seeing putatively hard-line conservative governments leap to place restrictions on businessesespecially regarding a question so fundamental as the health of entrepreneurs and their employeescould very well make business interests question the strength of their long-standing alliance with Republicans. Put differently, in the new paradigm, businesses might be sorted by their COVID-19 politics, not by the mere fact of being a business.

The pandemic has also sharpened an existing hypocrisy within the Republican Party over the importance of local control in government. As I wrote in 2017, growing GOP power in state capitals and more uniform liberal control in urban areas have created an inversion of traditional views about federalism. Liberals have come to view municipal government as a key center for progressive reform, while Republicans have become skeptical of their long-held devotion to local control and have enjoyed exercising state power to smack down city-level gun control, living-wage laws, fracking bans, and more.

COVID-19 has supercharged this tension. First came a round of clashes about mask mandates last summer. Liberal and liberal-leaning cities such as Atlanta, Houston, and San Antonio sought to require people to wear masks in public spaces. Conservative state governments passed laws or enacted executive orders preventing people from doing so. This is, once again, a valid exercise of governmental power, if not a wise one. But it is hardly a restrained one, and conflicts with the traditional conservative view that local populations know how to govern themselves best. Instead, these Republican officials once again decided that individual freedom was the more important value.

David A. Graham: The battle for local control is now a matter of life and death

Were now witnessing a reprise of this battle, especially centered on school districts. Education is another complicated space for federalism. Across the U.S., some choices are typically left to local authorities while others are controlled by the state. For example, all 50 states have laws requiring vaccines for some illnesses. In Texas, a legal battle is ping-ponging among courts over Abbotts ban on mask mandates, and local officials in San Antonio have announced that they will mandate masks and require teachers and staff to be vaccinated, notwithstanding the governors orders. In Florida, some school districts say they will attempt to mandate masks, despite a ban from Governor Ron DeSantis, also a Republican. The DeSantis administration threatened to defund districts that defy the ban and dock the pay of superintendents and school-board members who impose mandates, but later acknowledged that the state has no such power.

Progressive responses to the loosening conservative commitment to local control and business deregulation have varied. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would authorize the Department of Education to take legal action against states that block COVID-19 precautions. The liberal law professor Laurence Tribe wants to see the federal government step in to sue states on behalf of parentsa classic exercise of federal power.

In other cases, liberals find themselves in the unusual position of defending business against government interference. That is an outlier in recent political history, during which liberals have more often wanted government to force businesses to accept customers, as in the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case, which involved a baker who declined to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding, citing religious views. Yet though religious-freedom carve-outs and vaccine-mandate opposition appear to flow from a similar sense of conservative persecution by the culture at large, the comparison is superficial. Businesses are legally permitted to discriminate among customers all the timefor example, against patrons not wearing shirts or shoesand are barred from discrimination only along certain lines, such as race. The case for treating people who decline COVID-19 vaccines as a protected class, alongside historically disadvantaged groups, is flimsy, especially because transmission of the virus, unlike gender or sexual orientation, is a threat to others health.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are having second thoughts about the decisions they made earlier in the pandemic. This month, Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, said he regretted signing into a law a ban on local mask mandates. Whenever I signed that law, our cases were low, we were hoping that the whole thing was gone, in terms of the virus, but it roared back with the Delta variant, Hutchinson said. The governor and Republican legislators ignored a core principle of conservative political philosophy: to beware of changes to government that might have unforeseen consequences.

Hutchinson publicly pleaded for courts to invalidate the law. In early August, he got his wish when a judge blocked enforcement of the mask ban, saying it infringed on the rights of the governor, local health officials, and the state supreme court. If conservatives have to depend on the courts to restrain their own hands from unwise government impositions, what claim do they have on being conservatives?

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The Big-Government-Conservative War on Masks - The Atlantic