Three cheers for Texas

He wasn’t the first governor in the country to lift the mask mandate for his state.

North Dakota, Montana and Iowa have ended statewide mask orders in recent weeks and progressive states like Florida and South Dakota never issued them in the first place.

But Gov. Greg Abbott did the country a huge favor last week when he announced that Texas was allowing all businesses in the state to reopen at full capacity on March 10.

The national media scolded Abbott for dropping the mask mandate and acted like he was a reckless mass murderer, of course.

Public health experts — who never fail to see a new surge of virus cases over the horizon — warned that it was too dangerous now to loosen up mask rules.

And President Biden, our pessimist-in-chief who sees no return to normal life by Christmas, accused Abbott of “Neanderthal Thinking.”

But Abbott decided that his Texans had suffered enough. The economic, social and public health costs of lockdowns and school closings were too high to continue.

Suicides and drug overdoses are up in Abbott’s state and across the country because of loneliness and the stress of lost jobs and lost businesses.

Young people across the country are depressed because they can’t be in school with their friends — or even play sports. And dating? That’s been virtually impossible for a year.

Meanwhile, the liberal national media who beat up on Abbott this week continue to fail the country every chance they get.

Despite the rapid introduction of the vaccine, the approach of herd immunity and the steep decline in positive COVID-19 tests, deaths and hospitalizations since Christmas, the media still applaud strict government mandates and continue to push panic and negativity.

What they should be doing instead is calling out the autocratic Blue State governors who look for any excuse to hold on to the emergency lockdown powers they’ve used to destroy thousands of small businesses and keep schools and sports venues closed for a year.