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So Texans believe that the national power grid, with it's regulations, is socialist. But getting FEMA to rescue their frozen asses when their poorly maintained system fails is not socialist.

I'm tired of bailing out people who don't believe in bail outs.

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Thank you Heather.

I have friends who live throughout Texas. All of which purchased generators due to the changing climate challenges these last few years. They throughly understand the consequences of an underserviced power grid and the unforeseen weather patterns, so they are managing fine and helping those that aren't.

Rush Limbaugh, hum. I think of the adage, live your life in such a way that people don't rejoice in your death. I can think of others, but perhaps wouldn't be appropriate at this time.

Be safe, be well.

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Two incredibly clear and opposing visions of leading by example which clearly illustrate their relative effectiveness: Biden cares abouty the people and acts to solve the problem as far as his powers permit, Abbot-Boyd act to blame someone else.... "the bogeyman in Washington did it"...and thus to lie and obfuscate, to tell the people to look out for themselves as no one else will and to say that the problem could get worse if we had "more Biden"....and less of them. A no-brainer it would seem.

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The word "Balance" seems to be missing from this discussion this evening. Too much regulation is as bad as too little. Too little government can be as bad as too much government. I've lived in rural Texas since 2000 after having lived in Massachusetts for more than twenty years. As with every place I've lived or places I've visited the Texas culture has both features you like and features you could certainly do without. One might think of the stereotypical Texan as a "good ole boy", polite, independent, male, white and very conservative with bowed legs from being on a horse all day managing their cattle ranch who tips his cowboy hat to the "little ladies". When I came to Texas that stereotype was shattered when I found out ranchers use electric branding irons now. I do like the politeness and the independent nature of many Texans. When you go to the big cities in Texas you find a very different and very liberal world. Republicans do control the state government but the demographics of Texas is pushing Texas to purple and eventually blue. In defense of Texas, there are a lot of regulations that apply well in the northern states with colder climates that just haven't been necessary in Texas.... Until now that is when climate crisis events such as this frigid cold are now evident. I've learned that the cause of this frigid weather is a disruption of the polar vortex. This is the largest such disruption ever recorded since 1950 or so and is causing the same havoc in Greece and Turkey that we're having in Texas -- a global event, a climate crisis event that will happen more and more frequently. Like the derecho (I think of it as a horizontal hurricane) which caused billions of dollars of crop losses in Ohio last year it was unexpected and therefore Ohio was ill-prepared for it. I didn't know until yesterday about the polar vortex -- a spinning top of frigid air at the pole. I didn't know that with enough energy it could be disrupted and go topsy-turby. Please read this article about it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/topsy-turvy-polar-vortex-brought-record-freeze-texas-rcna290

So, as a resident of Texas I will certainly encouraged the state to become better prepared for the climate crisis. I have been very fortunate to have had electricity through the coldest days and nights of this event and only short periods without electricity today and yesterday. So, maybe my electric cooperative is doing a better job than others in the state.

It is true that the Republican politicians have the same disease the majority of the Republican Party nationally. No longer the party of Lincoln, it has become the party of hate, conspiracy theories, insurrection and violence. My answer is to not vote for any candidate that has a R beside their name (or a Q or T for that matter) even if I like a particular candidate like the guy representing me in the state legislature. I sent him an email explaining to him he would no longer have my vote because of the direction his party has taken. The last straw for me was seeing the Texas Senators vote to acquit the 45th President on a technicality. For me, the Republican Party is now dead.

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I guess the now former Mayor of Colorado City, Tim Boyd, forgets that people pay taxes to recieve services and utility bills for power and water. And Greg Abbot has no problem asking for a federal "handout" to aid the state of Texas.. Maybe after freezing for several days, some of the right wing sheep will wake up and see that they're being fed a mountain of.lies. Limbaugh's death will bring a welcome relief from the divisiveness, lies and bigotry that was his stock in trade.

Thanks, Heather, rest well.

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Don’t mess with us. But, by all means send federal emergency bailout funds.

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Wait, so Texas doesn’t want the federal government to regulate their power but they ask for federal aid when they need it?

Even when Rick Perry says they’d rather go it alone and that mayor says they SHOULD go it alone? It’s almost as if the GOP is operating in bad faith and talking out of both sides of their mouths. It’s almost as if this is a problem of their own creation that they need help to solve butnl they’re biting the hand that, in this case, warms them. It’s almost as if their bad policy choices, made with political expedience but no view toward the future, keep biting them in the butt. Sort of like, idk, dismantling a pandemic response team or something?

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I lieved in Texas for a year as a high school exchange student in a small town in the panhandle, at a time when the state was fundamentally Democratic ... a small town mayor, Democrat or Republican, who would have thought, spoken and acted like Mr. Boyd whould have been unthinkable and would have been considered a disgrace to his community.

Mr. Boyd does not have the crudest understanding of "res publica". Why did he run for mayor, why did he accept the post, if he had no understanding of serving the public?

A public service, like snow removal, is not a "handout". It is a public service, which has to be delivered most of all efficiently. There is no room for identity politics or much ideology in clearing streets or operating traffic lights.

The absurd example of Mr. Boyd's behavior shows that this has gone beyond anything which thinking Democrats or thinking Republicans would believe in as the basis, or platform, for going into public service on any level of government.

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Update from shivering in Texas...

We are now entering our fourth day in a row with power outages and NO WATER! If we were able to get any water we are all here in Texas under boil water orders. Still difficult to do without power, so new reason to be thankful for a propane grill to boil water melted from snow. Good news? More snow and freezing rain due today so water delivery is on the way, no thanks to our utilities or political leaders. Oh, and if we could get out to grocery stores, most have bare shelves due to hoarding again and no deliveries.

Bulletin for Tim Boyd and other clueless Texas Republican politicians like Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz (now vacationing in Cancun), and all the rest... We ain't looking for a handout but is concern for your constituents and competence too much to ask. Lots of other states and locations in the world manage their way through unseasonably cold weather and even worse natural disasters. But Texas??? Nooóoooo.

Texas Democrats and Independents and even some Republicans are PISSED OFF and I don't think a few sunny days are going to make them forget this happened on your watch.

So tell us what you are going to do to prevent disasters like this from happening in the future. Let's get busy winterizing and attending to our infrastructure. Is it going to cost money? Of course! Now say it with me... Bond issues to pay for needed infrastructure and revenue allocations to pay for those. It is definitely possible to do this.

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As I boil the microbes out of my water waiting to hear when we can bathe again, I’m really mad that Ted Cruz jumped on a plane with his family last night and went to Cancun.

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"The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!...After an outcry, Boyd resigned."

"Limbaugh [said that] the welfare system...is shredding the social fabric, bankrupting the country, and gutting the work ethic...and moral discipline of the poor.”

There's no irony (said ironically) that these comments came from"those who'd gotten theirs" and had no qualms about punching down at those who didn't. I'm guessing Mayor Tim Boyd had electricity at his home. He's probably financially comfortable. No doubt he's a churchgoer who wears his "Christianity" on his sleeve. Limbaugh came from an upper middle class family and was paid handsomely to espouse Movement Conservativism. Churchgoer or not he leaned on "Christian values."

Their sanctimonious use of implied religious morality, manifested by the liberal sprinkling of Bible references and saying "Jesus taught us" has permeated the right since at least 1992 when Gingrich entered the scene. Many of them couldn't recite the 10 Commandments if they were written on a barn door and probably had a cheat sheet in their jacket pocket just I'm case.

"Abbott [said] that “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.”

The GOP's go-to response is to deflect, project, and reject - and the facts be damned. So Abbott and Carlson and others are attacking an environmental initiative that isn't even a law, and whose statements are easily undermined by a touch of research and, ironically once again, contradicted by the head of the organization that manages the state's power grid. And yet, having spewed nonsense about about a power system that had been privatized with the specific intent of avoiding federal "interference" by regulation, Governor Abbott, backed by election denier Ted Cruz, wasted not one minute asking for "handouts."

"At Abbott’s request, President Biden has declared that Texas is in a state of emergency, freeing up federal money and supplies for the state."

Just like Trump helped Puerto Rico after a hurricane? Or California after wildfires? Or Michigan after water pollution? As Esquire's Charles Pierce might say, these really are the mole people.

I'm literally sickened by the dishonesty and hypocrisy.

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Appreciating this thread of back story to the “modern conservative” narrative— a pernicious and vulgar lens.

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Well, it seems to me that Abbott cannot have it both ways... he wants no regulation or Federal infrastructure interference.. and Texas has its own power system to prove it ( only state to have its own), but then wants the Feds, ie is via tax dollars, to assist.. or bail them out. Seems hypocritical to me.. as I read recently, ...here is a joke:

Texas-“we don’t want interference! Texas won’t work with the Democrats until he’ll freezes over!”, God-“ok. That’s do-able!” Not to be insensitive to people’s needs.. it’s just that you can’t bite the hand thst feeds you...

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It is always delightful to wake up and have Ms. Richardson tie together stories in the news with a historical backdrop. What doesn't change is politicians. "I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops." (from Hunt for Red October).

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Abbott is lying about what is wrong. This happened a decade ago and FERC made recommendations on how to protect the TX system. As usual, TX ignored the advice. Government failure and Abbott owns it.

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"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." While that quote is falsely attributed to Mark Twain I found it quite appropriate to my feelings about the passing of Limbaugh. It was often said that the fact checkers that worked for his show had the easiest job anywhere because they never had to fact check anything. He may have been the first to spew hatred and self-entitlement on national radio with impunity, but he is not the last. We need to apply pressure to our congress people to rewrite and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to stop the one who will step in to fill the echo chamber vacuum left by Limbaugh.

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