The Political Thread

Bruce Castor

I’m saddened that a family that produced such a fine oil for so many decades and helped keep so many of us healthy for likely a centennial is now under scrutiny... politics have become such a rough game...

Hail to the Castors! Don’t they make some good beans, too?

COVID-19 Cases Have Been Severely Under-Counted, Study Says

Are the COVID-19 key statistics provided by counties, states, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes and federal agencies (including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) current and correct?

They are not even close to accurate, according to a new study.


--02-11-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/avlon-we-saw-trump-supporters-turn-patriotism-into-hate/vi-BB1dBcJM
We saw Trump supporters turn patriotism into hate.

--02-11-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/some-congressional-republicans-dismiss-trial-as-waste-of-time/vi-BB1dBk8B
Some congressional Republicans are dismissing the second impeachment trial as a waste of time, and the Morning Joe panel discusses their public remarks and the impact those remarks will have on the party in future elections.

--02-12-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/supermarket-shopper-slaps-employee-who-tried-to-enforce-mask-rule-video-shows/vi-BB1dCUlN
Supermarket shopper slaps employee who tried to enforce mask rule, video shows.

MUST READS:
--02-11-21: -02-11-21: www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/lancet-study-finds-40-percent-of-us-covid-19-deaths-could-have-been-avoided/ar-BB1dBiMf?li=BBnbfcL
Lancet Study Finds 40 Percent of U.S. Covid-19 Deaths Could Have Been Avoided

The British medical journal the Lancet, on Wednesday, published a damning assessment of Donald Trump’s presidency and its impact on Americans’ health, concluding that 40 percent of the nearly 500,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. over the last year were avoidable.

The journal came to the conclusion by comparing the U.S. health outcomes on the coronavirus—the country leads the world in Covid deaths and confirmed cases with more than 27 million—with the weighted average of other G7 nations. So it’s not a wildly abstract conclusion to draw:

The U.S. could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if it had just performed similarly to its economic peers.

Many of the cases and deaths were avoidable.

Instead of galvanizing the U.S. populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation.


--02-11-21: www.cnbc.com/2021/02/11/bill-gates-says-bioterrorism-climate-change-are-the-next-big-threats.html
Bill Gates says bioterrorism and climate change are the next biggest threats after pandemic

Years before the coronavirus battered the globe, Bill Gates warned that governments weren’t prepared for a pandemic.
Now, he’s calling out the threats of bioterrorism and climate change.
“The number of deaths with the right system should be a 10th of what we see here,” Gates said.

--02-11-21: www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-impeachment-can-answer-lot-about-capitol-riot-not-ncna1257189
Trump's impeachment can answer a lot about the Capitol riot. But not who funded it.

Financial anonymity is now as American as apple pie — and illicit finance has raced to the U.S. over the past few decades.

…And Anna Massoglia of OpenSecrets reports that the Trump campaign had previously directed nearly $3 million to people who helped organize the rally — though the money wasn't for the rally specifically. Beyond that, however, little is known about the financial links between Trump's network and those who descended on the Capitol.

As Massoglia noted, "The full extent of the Trump campaign's ties to the protests may not be fully known due to its use of shell companies that hide details of its financial dealings and the central role 'dark money' played in the protests."

She's exactly right. Thanks to a lattice of financial secrecy vehicles — all of which are perfectly legal — we may never have a complete financial picture of those who provided the money to organize a rally that descended into chaos and that shook the underpinnings of American democracy.

This is just one example of a much bigger problem. The U.S. remains the biggest offshore and financial secrecy haven in the world.

Thanks to a wide range of financial tools, from anonymous hedge funds to anonymous trusts to anonymous real estate purchases, there are few jurisdictions easier to hide money in than the U.S. Financial anonymity is as American as apple pie — and illicit finance has raced to the U.S. over the past few decades.

Much of that anonymous money has, unsurprisingly, found its way into the American political sector. As another estimate from OpenSecrets found, $750 million from untraceable "dark money" groups barreled into the 2020 election, adding to the staggering totals we've seen in just the past decade.

These "dark money" conduits include organizations like the Republican Attorneys General Association, whose Rule of Law Defense Fund helped direct people to the Jan. 6 protest — all without having to disclose its donors. (The group later denied that it helped organize the protest, even though it made robocalls pointing audiences to the rally.)

Another nonprofit shielded from disclosing its donors, dubbed Women for America First, helped take the lead in organizing the rally-turned-insurrection — and often "feature[d] members of the president's campaign and family," ABC News reported.

--02-11-21 BRAVO: slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/trump-raffensperger-election-fraud-criminal-charges.html
It Sure Looks Like Trump Will Face Criminal Charges for Election Fraud.

--02-11-21 BIG HUGE BRAVO—ALL CITIES NEED TO DO THIS—LONG OVER DUE: www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-02-10/sacramento-ending-single-family-zoning?utm_source=sfmc_100035609&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=39225+Essential+California+2%2f11%2f21&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.latimes.com%2fhomeless-housing%2fstory%2f2021-02-10%2fsacramento-ending-single-family-zoning&utm_id=23313&sfmc_id=3384599
In a first for California, Sacramento poised to allow apartments in single-family home neighborhoods

Ringing downtown just a quick bike ride from the state Capitol building are some of Sacramento’s most upscale neighborhoods. There’s Land Park, a leafy community of well-maintained homes that surround 167 acres of urban parkland. And there’s the Fabulous 40s, with its blocks of stately homes on deep lots, including the big blue house from the film “Lady Bird” and the six-bedroom home that the Reagans lived in during the early part of Ronald’s gubernatorial tenure a half-century ago.

The neighborhoods’ exclusivity and desirability owe, in no small part, to their zoning: single-family residential.

That could soon change.

In an unprecedented move, Sacramento is on the verge of approving a plan that would make the city the first in California, and one of the first in the country, to end zoning that permits only one single-family home on a property.

Under the proposal, up to four homes could be built on lots in neighborhoods long defined by their low-density, traffic-free tranquillity.

Sacramento’s effort to dramatically alter its streetscape reflects the capital city’s rapidly broadening identity. Once dominated by state government, Sacramento has seen a huge influx of people and employers in healthcare and technology — including San Francisco Bay Area workers willing to live remotely or make the 90-mile drive to the office in exchange for cheaper living.

The migration has bolstered the city’s arts and cultural scene, but rents have gone up by double digits and rising homelessness has prompted protests over deteriorating conditions for people on the streets.

Backing the zoning proposal is Sacramento’s Democratic mayor, Darrell Steinberg, and a coalition of activists that includes white-collar renters who fear the kind of spiraling housing costs that many left behind in the Bay Area. The group, House Sacramento, is part of a network of organizations across the state called Yes in My Backyard, or YIMBY, that push for similar measures.

--02-11-21 BRAVO—MUST STOP THE LIES—MISINFORMATION: www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/another-big-lie-judge-wolff-says-he-wants-to-stop-virus-misinformation/ar-BB1dAs20?li=BBnb7Kz
'Another big lie...' Judge Wolff says he wants to stop virus misinformation

SAN ANTONIO - Perpetuating fears about the vaccine or pieces of misinformation are floating around social media platforms.

Tech companies like Facebook announced this week a new effort to remove false vaccine information from their pages.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff wants to stop the rumor mill and make the facts clear.

“The vaccine is toxic -- a big lie,” Wolff started. “They cause autism - another big lie. Saying masks are ineffective - another big lie. Saying it causes infertility - another big lie.

“They say they're going to clamp down on it and hopefully they will because we gotta get the vaccine if we plan to get this thing under control

--02-11-21 BRAVO: edition.cnn.com/2021/02/10/tech/robert-kennedy-jr-instagram-ban/index.html
Instagram on Wednesday took down the account of controversial anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines," a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement.

HATE EVENTS/POLICE EVENTS/IDIOTIC-STUPID EVENTS/NUTCASES:

--02-12-21 IT NEVER ENDS: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/colorado-officer-shown-in-video-punching-suspect-multiple-times-fired/ar-BB1dD9uu?li=BBnbfcL
Colorado officer, shown in video punching suspect multiple times, fired

A Colorado police officer was fired Thursday following investigations into an excessive use of force incident in which he punched a suspect multiple times in the ribs and shocked him five times with a Taser before giving any verbal commands.

Aurora police Officer Robert Rosen responded Aug. 10 to a King Soopers supermarket, where another officer requested assistance in arresting a man on trespassing charges, according to a statement from the department. The man was on the ground on his stomach with his arms underneath him, according to police and body camera video worn by the officer who was trying to initially arrest him.

Rosen arrived to the scene and immediately started punching the man in the ribs before saying anything, the body camera video showed. He then deployed his Taser five times, for a total of 27 seconds within two minutes, according to police.

The suspect suffered minor injuries.

"During the arrest Officer Rosen never attempted any lesser means of force nor did he make any attempts to deescalate the situation in accordance with Aurora Police training," the department said in the statement.

Investigations into the incident found Rosen did not activate his body camera during the arrest and "failed to document his justifications for each use of force that he used during the arrest," police said.

Authorities determined he violated use of force, performance, body worn camera, Taser and lawful orders directives given by the department.

In a letter informing Rosen of his termination, police Chief Vanessa Wilson wrote: "Upon arrival at the scene, you did not attempt to deescalate the situation and did not attempt to use lesser means of force throughout the contact. In fact, you further escalated the situation by quickly going hands on with the subject prior to providing any verbal commands."

--02-11-21 IT NEVER ENDS--WOULD RATHER HARASS DRIVERS THEN SOLVING MURDERS: www.texasobserver.org/undetected/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_worldview&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_todayworld
…In 2019, four Texas cities—Houston, Arlington, Killeen, and Lubbock—cleared 40 percent or less of reported homicides, according to the latest FBI statistics. These dismal results have provoked an audit in Houston and anger from victims’ relatives, some of whom say detectives never contacted them.

Police in Dallas reported a clearance rate of just 54 percent in 2019. After 40 homicides were reported in May of that year, the highest monthly body count since the 1990s, local advocates requested more detectives and increased oversight. Instead, Governor Greg Abbott dispatched Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers, who conducted 12,500 traffic stops in seven weeks—an effort that advocates viewed as unnecessary harassment rather than real help.

The Dallas Police Department, which has 3,000 officers and a $500 million annual budget, initially assigned only one homicide detective in 2018 to reexamine dozens of deaths that might be linked to Chemirmir.

The detective was initially assigned exclusively to the investigation, but later juggled other murder cases.

In 2018, the department’s 16 to 19 homicide detectives handled an average of more than 10 new murder cases each. That’s more than twice the recommended caseload, even without extra time for working older homicide cases.

Police chiefs are constantly balancing the need for officers on the street with the need for detectives to investigate surges in murders, but murders are being shortchanged, advocates say.

--02-11-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/militia-members-trained-and-plotted-for-capitol-riot-had-chilling-clear-plan-prosecutors-say/ar-BB1dBPiV?li=BBnb7Kz

Militia Members 'Trained and Plotted' for Capitol Riot, Had 'Chilling Clear' Plan, Prosecutors Say

While the Capitol riot shocked Americans who watched it unfold on their televisions, the Oath Keepers, a collection of militias, had been planning for a possible insurrection since the election to make sure members were "fighting fit" by President Joe Biden's inauguration.

Unlike the "vast majority" of those who stormed the Capitol, the Oath Keepers and specifically member Jessica Watkins, "trained and plotted" for the riot, according to court documents. Ahead of the riot, members were encouraged to participate in combat training and when January 6 arrived, they had a plan.

"An unknown male cautioned over the channel for [Watkins] to be safe, and stated, 'Get it, Jess. Do your f****** thing ... Everything we f****** trained for," a court document says occurred after Watkins' group made it into the Capitol rotunda.

When the mob reached the Capitol, a group of people wearing helmets, bullet-proof vests, gloves with knuckle protection and radios marched "tightly together in an organized line" up the steps on the east side. Some of the individuals in the group wore Oath Keeper patches or insignia, court documents say. Video footage from the riot also shows individuals operating in the described formation and wearing the protective gear mentioned in the legal filing.

--02-12-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-faces-deeper-fbi-scrutiny-after-details-from-ex-aides/ar-BB1dDlqZ?li=BBnbfcL
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Faces Deeper FBI Scrutiny After Details From Ex-Aides

Last fall, a number of senior staffers accused Texas's highest-ranking attorney of committing crimes to assist Nate Paul, later alleging that the developer or companies owned by him had a hand in work done on Paxton's home.

All of those making accusations quit or were fired; four later sued the attorney general under the state's whistleblower law. The latest details have emerged in an updated court complaint filed Thursday.

The lawsuit accuses Paxton of abusing his position to help Paul and claims the former deputies have information to suggest Paul "was involved in" the remodeling of a house in an affluent area of Austin, owned by Paxton.

It also claims Paul employed the attorney general's alleged mistress as a construction project manager. Paul gave $25,000 to Paxton's 2018 reelection campaign.

At least one Austin contractor has received a subpoena for records—including receipts, invoices and communications—relating to work on Paxton's home, according to Associated Press. The subpoena calls for the contractor to testify before a grand jury.

Paxton's spokesman denied he acted illegally.

"Any accusations that the Attorney General acted contrary to the law are completely false and they will be proven false in court," Ian Prior said in a statement.

According to reports last year, Paxton intervened at least four times on a range of legal matters involving or helpful to Paul.

On one occasion, top agency attorneys allegedly pushed a charity to agree to a greatly reduced settlement in a financial dispute with a company owned by Paul.

The lawyer for the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation said at the time it seemed Paxton's office was representing Paul, while reports called the attorney general's level of involvement "highly unusual and potentially unethical."

Several of Paxton's top staff reported him to law enforcement for alleged abuse of office and bribery in fall 2020. Paxton fired a number of the employees, leading them to file a lawsuit.

"Plaintiffs reasonably believed Paxton's bizarre abuse of his office was the result of bribery," the filing states, labelling Paxton's actions an "obsessive use of the power of his office."

If the former deputies win their case, the state could have to pay out sums in excess of a million dollars in fees, damages and lost pay and benefits.

The attorney general has spent most of his time in office under felony indictment. He faces securities fraud charges relating to his time as a state legislator, for which he was indicted in 2015 but has not yet faced trial. He has pleaded not guilty.

--02-11-21: us.yahoo.com/news/m-going-come-kill-president-164923442.html
‘I’m going to come kill the president’: NC man charged with threatening Biden

A Gaston County man with a long history of violence is charged with threatening to kill President Joe Biden.

According to newly unsealed documents in the case, David Kyle Reeves, 27, of Gastonia, made a series of angry and erratic phone calls to the White House switchboard between Jan. 28 and Feb. 1 in which he threatened to kill the president and other federal officials. He repeated the threats in phone conversations with the Secret Service in which he dared agents to try and stop him, documents show.

“I’m going to come kill the president, I’m going to kill the Secret Service because I own this whole planet,” Reeves said in a phone call to a Secret Service special agent, according to an affidavit.

The energy folks had prepared for the Hot Sizzling Summers BUT NOT for the freezes— most of the  sources of energy failed during this freeze AND IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY—If they had PREPARED Properly, they would not have lost power to this degree.

Already the TEXAS IDIOTS (GOP) are Lying thru their teeth as they pull dirty LIES out of their ASSES and blame this all on Green Energy (A HUGE LIE).

Please read the following articles for the TRUTH-FACTS-REALITY:

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/news/texas-governor-blamed-renewable-energy-150329586.html
Texas governor blamed renewable energy for blackouts on Fox News. He told Texans a different story.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is using his state's overwhelming blackouts as a deceptive excuse to attack the Green New Deal.

More than 2.5 million Texas power customers remain in the dark after unprecedented winter storms froze several of the state's power sources.

While some of the state's unweatherized windmills did freeze up, most of the blame lies with natural gas shortages.

That's exactly what Abbott told Dallas-area ABC affiliate WFAA on Tuesday night, describing how natural gas has frozen up and prevented manufacturers from extracting and shipping it to power plants and customers.

But when Abbott appeared on Fox News and faced a national audience, he told a different story. "This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for America," Abbott told Hannity, particularly noting how solar and wind power got "shut down."

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/news/dont-blame-wind-turbines-texas-171934901.html
Don't blame wind turbines for Texas' historic power outages

Officials say the situation in Texas is dire, as some 3 million homes and businesses remain without power following a deadly, record-breaking storm. As some of the coldest temperatures in decades hit the Lone Star State, many have pointed blame at an unusual source: wind turbines.


"This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source," Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw tweeted Tuesday. "When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn't there when you need it."

"We should never build another wind turbine in Texas," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller wrote on Facebook. "The experiment failed big time."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott echoed the sentiment and took the opportunity to criticize the Green New Deal.

"This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America," Abbott said to Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday. "Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis."

But the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which supplies about 90% of the state with its power, said Tuesday that wind power is responsible for just a fraction of the loss. Of the 45,000 megawatts of power offline during the peak, 30,000 megawatts stemmed from natural gas, while 16,000 megawatts were from wind turbines.

"Of the power shortfall that hit Texas, over 80% was due to problems at coal- and gas-fired plants," PolitiFact reported.

Experts say traditional energy sources, including coal and natural gas, performed below expectations, while wind power actually performed above expectations.

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/lifestyle/republicans-lying-causing-texas-blackouts-163143163.html
Republicans Are Lying About What’s Causing The Texas Blackouts

Since Monday, millions of Texans have been without power as a winter storm ravaged the state. On Tuesday, around 4 million people were without power, and as of Wednesday, nearly 3 million still lack electricity — all while dealing with the coldest temperatures the state has experienced in months.

Experts say that there are several reasons for the power outages, but naturally, the state’s Republican leaders have found a way to shift blame onto renewable energy and use the statewide crisis to spread lies about proposed climate legislation.

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Governor Greg Abbott told Fox News on Tuesday. “Our wind and our solar got shut down and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid.”

But what made up the other 80 to 90% of the state’s power grid? The answer: fossil fuels. In a Tuesday press conference, representatives from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said that 45,000 megawatts were offline. 15,000 were wind, and 30,000 were gas and coal.

“Texas is a gas state,” Michael Webber, a University of Texas energy resources professor, told the Texas Tribune. “Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, an avid critic of the Green New Deal, also jumped at the opportunity to blame green energy. “This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get as bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it,” he wrote on Twitter.

Despite these Republicans outright lies, there are several reasons as to why both turbines and gas failed. This week’s extreme weather conditions led to an unprecedented, high demand for energy, and power sources across the state were not built to withstand low temperatures.

As many experts and scientists have pointed out, not only do wind turbines account for a small fraction of the state’s generated energy, but if they’d been properly weatherized — the way they are in Antarctica, and in other parts of the U.S. — they wouldn’t have frozen.

--02-17-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-gov-greg-abbott-gets-trashed-for-appearing-on-hannity-in-the-middle-of-blackout-crisis-to-blame-the-green-new-deal/ar-BB1dLBrc?li=BBnbfcL
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Gets Trashed for Appearing on Hannity in the Middle of Blackout Crisis to Blame the Green New Deal

With historic winter storms and freezing temperatures throughout his state causing widespread blackouts, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is under fire for taking time to speak with Sean Hannity, and making false claims about the cause of his state’s power crisis.

Abbott appeared on Hannity’s Fox News program Tuesday night and blamed the blackouts on frozen wind turbines in the Lone Star State.

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott told Hannity. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis… As a result, it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas.”

This claim has been debunked by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages most of the state’s power grid. According to the ERCOT (via the Texas Tribune), natural gas providers, unprepared for the extreme cold, are responsible for most of the outages.

The Washington Post reports that thermal power plants primarily reliant on natural gas have been responsible for five to six times as many outages as frozen wind turbines.

But Abbott didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good partisan argument. Green New Deal co-sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took exception to Abbott’s comments.

“The real ‘deadly deal’ is his failed leadership,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/entertainment/texas-power-crisis-proves-more-194117266.html
The Texas Power Crisis Proves We Need More, Not Less, Renewable Energy

The pandemic has driven home a lesson that’s been true for a long time about Republican politicians: They don’t actually care about the welfare of their constituents so long as they’re able to trick enough people into people into believing the other side is responsible for everything that’s wrong.

Nearly 500,000 people have died and millions more have had their lives upturned largely because of the GOP’s negligence, but they’ll have you believe the real enemies are the liberals impinging on your freedom by asking you to wear a mask.

A similar routine is playing out in response to the brutal ice storm that swept through Texas earlier this week, leaving millions without power due to an energy grid that was totally unprepared to shoulder the stress of a winterized natural disaster. On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott went on Fox News to point the finger at renewable energy. “

This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” he said before claiming the “shutdown” of solar and wind energy “thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power.”

Abbott isn’t alone. Republicans looking to score political points from across the spectrum have been blaming green energy for the disaster, including those in Texas. “This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.”

Right-wing media has been right there with them. The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Monday published an op-ed titled “A Deep Green Freeze,” and Tucker Carlson echoed the argument Abbott made on Hannity by claiming that Texas is “totally reliant on windmills.”

The fact that wind power only accounts for seven percent of the state’s expected winter energy capacity is beside the point. The bottom line here is that liberals and the Green New Deal are to blame, and what Texas really needs is even more of that sweet, sweet fossil fuel.

But what Abbott, his fellow Republicans, and conservative media conveniently fail to mention is that the Green New Deal is only an idea. The nation, and especially Texas, are powered by fossil fuels, overwhelmingly so, and it’s under this system that Texas was cast into the Dark Ages after a few days of uncharacteristically cold temperatures. The real culprit here is not frozen wind turbines; it’s that huge percentage of Texas’ natural gas-powered thermal plants have frozen and gone offline.

One of the reasons why all of these plants are offline is because the Texas power grid is largely deregulated and privatized. As the Texas Tribune laid out in 2011, the state isolated its power grid from that of the rest of the nation because it didn’t want it to be subject to federal regulation. This led to cost cutting, and over the years the state’s energy infrastructure fell into disrepair.

“The [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, told the Houston Chronicle. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”

This is all to say that fossil fuels and conservative leadership are very much to blame for the devastation that has swept across the state this week, and if anything the widespread blackouts prove we need to ramp up renewable energy, which is generally more resilient to inclement weather.

Renewable energy doesn’t exacerbate the climate crisis, either, which has helped spur all of these unpredictable weather events, which are only going to get worse. The future of our country hangs in the balance. Republicans either don’t understand this, or they do and they don’t care because — again — they know they’ll be able to spin enough blame onto Democrats to get themselves reelected.

--02-17-21: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/in-texas-s-black-swan-blackout-everything-went-wrong-at-once?srnd=premium
In Texas’s Black-Swan Blackout, Everything Went Wrong at Once

As the hours ticked by and millions more were plunged into frozen darkness, a more sober reality emerged. The greatest forced blackout in U.S. history, as this event has almost certainly become, was the result of a systemic and multifaceted failure.

There are no promises of when power will be restored and little likelihood that the episode won’t be repeated in a corner of the country hard hit by climate change.

“This feels like a technical design failure,” said Michael Webber, who founded the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as chief science and technology officer at French utility Engie.

Power plants weren’t fully weatherized, wiping out generation capacity. The ones that were still standing struggled to get enough fuel, with shale wells experiencing so-called freeze-offs. Many wind turbines stopped spinning. Texas, with a grid notoriously isolated from the rest of the U.S., was unable to call on neighboring states for help.


--02-17-21: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-17/texas-s-power-crisis-shows-what-happens-when-we-ignore-climate-change?srnd=premium
Texas Shows What Happens When We Ignore Climate Change

Stop looking for something or someone else to blame for cold, dark days.

Texas, plunged into darkness by vicious winter weather and an inadequate power grid, may have to come up with its own pithy description of what happens to best-laid plans when reality intervenes. On Monday, about 4 million Texans — around 1.4 million in greater Houston alone — had no heat or electricity during an ongoing series of rolling blackouts.

Texas is hardly alone, of course. Severe weather has sideswiped power production in 14 states stretching from the Dakotas to Oklahoma and derailed energy markets in places as far away as Japan and France. The common denominator is climate change, and the jarring extremes in temperature and precipitation that can accompany it.

But Texas offers unique lessons about hubris, management and governance. And its crisis has landed the state in the center of political and private-sector blame-trading that is a hallmark of our era.

No sooner had the lights gone out in Texas than Tucker Carlson, the Fox News commentator, named wind power the villain. “The windmills froze, so the power grid failed,” he opined in a Monday broadcast.

“Rather than celebrate and benefit from their state’s vast natural resources, politicians took the fashionable route and became recklessly reliant on so-called alternative energy — meaning windmills.”

Well, no.

Natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear energy fuel about 80% of Texas’s power grid. Wind generates a fraction of that amount, particularly during the winter. Even with the weather conspiring against it, wind still appears to have produced significantly more capacity in Texas during the current crisis than anticipated.

In 2011, the last time Texas’s grid suffered a major failure, wind power wasn’t even in use. As my colleague Liam Denning makes clear, the causes of Texas’s power failure are complex, but laying the blame on wind alone is silly.

Stepping away from the mechanics of how Texas generates power and looking at the broader ways in which it manages its grid is also revealing. Some of the state’s woes are due to old-fashioned dilapidation.

Texas’s grid “has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, told the Houston Chronicle. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.”


--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/news/rick-perry-suggests-texans-prefer-191900865.html

Rick Perry suggests Texans prefer blackouts to federal energy regulation

Rick Perry once wanted to get rid of the U.S. Department of Energy. Now, he's apparently fine with temporarily ridding Texas of energy altogether.

As the former Republican governor of Texas and energy secretary under former President Donald Trump, Perry had a lot to say about the state's ongoing blackouts amid an unprecedented winter storm.

But even as it becomes clear Texas' energy system needs a major overhaul, Perry said Texans would rather remain in the dark if it meant keeping the federal government out, he told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) office in a blog post published Wednesday.

Perry, like other conservatives, blamed Texas' renewable energy sources for the outages, and alleged the Biden administration's focus on decreasing fossil fuel dependence would make this happen again.

Perry did note that natural gas supplies most of Texas' power, not solar and wind, but still claimed Texas would refuse to adopt more of those renewable sources no matter how heavily the federal government subsidizes them.

‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’
Bill Gates

SHOW TO WATCH:
“Sea of Life”
HBO

--02-18-21 THE LOU DOBBS VIDEO (HEE HEE): edition.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/02/09/lou-dobbs-canceled-rhetoric-smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-business-stelter-pkg-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/
Here's just how extreme Dobbs' rhetoric became before cancellation


--02-18-21 THE HATE: us.yahoo.com/news/daily-show-solves-texas-blackouts-071413984.html
The Daily Show solves Texas blackouts with 'America's most renewable resource: the insane hatred of AOC'

"A freak winter storm slammed into Texas, causing blackouts for millions of people," and after three days, things are "awful," Trevor Noah said on Wednesday's Daily Show. "I know people were praying for Texas to go blue, but not like this. I mean is it too much to ask for just one apocalypse at a time?" All over Texas, "pipes are frozen, temperatures are below zero, ice is everywhere — forget Texans, this would be too much for Elsa," he joked.

Texans are struggling to get heat, water, and food, but "luckily for them, their leaders have stepped up in their time of need" — to blame windmills and Democrats, Noah said. Look, this is embarrassing for Texas Republicans, he said. "I mean, this is the state that prides itself on its oil and gas industry, and now that industry has failed spectacularly."

But GOP state leaders and their cable news allies are getting "so desperate to just let fossil fuels off the hook" they're blaming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the nonexistent Green New Deal, he added, and that "is f---ing insane."

"This just goes to show you, no matter what happens, no matter how far removed she is from the problem, conservatives can and will always find a way to blame the boogeyman, AOC," Noah said. That's clearly "disingenuous, but the good news is it's led to an amazing breakthrough that might just solve Texas' energy problems forever."

That breakthrough, unveiled in a fake ad, "draws power from America's most renewable resource: the insane hatred of AOC."

--02-18-21 THE HATE: us.yahoo.com/news/republicans-censure-burr-toomey-trump-impeachment-221846176.html
Republicans Have Emerged From The Capitol Insurrection United Against Democracy.

--02-17-21 HUGE BRAVO: www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-02-17/at-93-she-waged-war-on-jpmorgan-and-two-financial-advisors-her-grandsons?srnd=premium
At 93, She Waged War on JPMorgan—and Her Own Grandsons

Beverley Schottenstein said two grandsons who managed her money at JPMorgan forged documents, ran up commissions with inappropriate trading and made her miss tens of millions of dollars in gains. So she decided to teach them all a lesson.

--02-18-21 BRAVO-HE IS CORRECT: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/boebert-draws-democratic-challenger-who-labels-her-threat-to-democracy/ar-BB1dNACG?li=BBnbfcL
Boebert draws Democratic challenger who labels her 'threat to democracy.

--02-18-21 BRAVO: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/proud-boys-member-jeffrey-perrine-expelled-from-california-gop-group/ar-BB1dNqMf?li=BBnbfcL
Proud Boys Member Jeffrey Perrine Expelled From California GOP Group.

--02-17-21 BRAVO BUT NEED A SUPER HARD CRACKDOWN WITH JAIL TIME/HUGE FINES: www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/feds-crack-down-on-cheap-parts-online-that-illegally-turn-pistols-into-machine-guns/ar-BB1dLv6d?li=BBnbfcL
Feds crack down on cheap parts online that illegally turn pistols into machine guns

At least three North Texans are among multiple people nationwide who are accused of possessing a small and inexpensive device — typically available online from China — that can turn an ordinary pistol into a dangerous and illegal machine gun, according to federal court records.

When Karo Khudanyan, 24, was pulled over in Arlington for speeding in May, police found that his Glock 19 handgun had been altered to become fully automatic, allowing for continuous fire with a single pull of the trigger, according to a federal complaint. The pistol also had a high-capacity magazine with 22 rounds, the complaint said.

Khudanyan, of Grand Prairie, said he bought the “converter switch,” which attaches to the rear of the pistol, from a Chinese website, court records show. He pleaded guilty in federal court in Fort Worth to a charge of possession of an unregistered firearm and is awaiting sentencing.

His attorney could not be reached for comment. Khudanyan has previous convictions in state court for reckless discharge of a firearm and marijuana possession, court records show.

Police in various states say they are increasingly finding the selector switches on handguns. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives believes thousands of the devices have been imported into the U.S. from China and in many cases are winding up in the hands of felons and other criminals.

An ATF spokesman told CNN in 2019 that getting them off the streets was a “high priority.” The devices, which are not manufactured by Glock, typically cost under $100 each and are shipped from China, often mislabeled as something else.

The switches are similar to what “bump stocks” can do for rifles. Bump stocks became illegal in 2019 after the Justice Department amended federal regulations clarifying that they fall within the legal definition of a machine gun.

--02-17-21 HUGE BRAVO: www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/cnn-anchor-hammers-fox-news-for-false-claim-about-spontaneous-trump-rally/ar-BB1dJI9b?li=BBnb7Kz
CNN Anchor Hammers Fox News for False Claim About ‘Spontaneous’ Trump Rally

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar on Tuesday went off on rival network Fox News for peddling an easily debunked lie that a President’s Day rally for former President Donald Trump was “organic” and “spontaneous.” The right-wing cable network has become “it’s own worst nightmare,” she said.

During an event hyped as the “Presidents’ Day ‘Peaceful and Patriotic’ Pro-Trump Rally,” a few hundred MAGA diehards lined a street in West Palm Beach to greet the former president on Monday afternoon after he returned from a golf outing.

Flashing a thumbs up as his motorcade slowly drove past them, the gathering represented Trump’s first public appearance since the Senate acquitted him of inciting an insurrection.

Despite the rally being hyped for a week on far-right media, sycophantic Fox News hosts Pete Hegseth and Sean Hannity both insisted the gathering was not pre-planned in an apparent effort to boost the disgraced ex-president’s ego.

“Fox is becoming its own worst nightmare, completely predictable,” Keilar declared on Tuesday. “Worship Trump, blame Democrats, spotlight fear. Rinse, lather, repeat.”

She sardonically added: “And despite the lies and conspiracy theories being documented and deconstructed on a daily basis, they make like the Brady Bunch kids and keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on all through the night.”

After airing a clip of Hannity insisting “thousands of people” gathered “spontaneously” to cheer on Trump, Keilar explained that there was an organized police presence at the rally and shared a copy of the online invitation sent out by media groups.

“But Sean Hannity is never one to let facts get in the way of things,” the CNN anchor continued, playing another clip of the Fox host and Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. gushing over the “totally organic” event.

“When you go to bed with lies, you wake up with them on the channel too,” Keilar then noted, sharing a clip of Hegseth on Fox & Friends lying that it was “not a planned event.”

The CNN dayside host, who had become increasingly outspoken against Fox during the Trump era, warned her viewers that “these lies are not harmless” as they are “dividing family” and constituting “part of the bigger lie about what is true and what isn’t.”

HATE EVENTS/POLICE EVENTS/STUPID-IDIOTIC EVENTS/NUT CASE EVENTS:

--02-18-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-a-liberal-lawyer-in-georgia-took-an-extreme-right-turn/ar-BB1dMYuI?li=BBnb7Kz
How a Liberal Lawyer in Georgia Took an Extreme Right Turn

AMERICUS, Ga.— Over the past three decades, as the state around him turned ever more resolutely Republican, W. McCall Calhoun Jr. remained an outspoken and unwavering liberal. He gave money to Democrats, ran for office as a Democrat and zealously championed Democratic policies in social circles that were far from sympathetic. If friends admitted they voted for Donald J. Trump, his reaction could be blistering.

“He was hard core, there’s no doubt about it,” said Dr. Michael Busman, a physician who has known Mr. Calhoun for years. “He wouldn’t even want to talk to you if you were Republican.”

But last year, as the progressive movement in Georgia was on the cusp of historic electoral triumph, Mr. Calhoun, a small-town lawyer whose family had long roots in the state, suddenly abandoned the Democrats. And not only that, he pledged to kill them.

“I have tons of ammo,” Mr. Calhoun wrote on Twitter three months before storming the U.S. Capitol with a pro-Trump mob. “Gonna use it too — at the range and on racist democrat communists. So make my day.”

The sudden conversion of Mr. Calhoun, who is now in federal custody, was baffling to many who knew him. Indeed, Mr. Calhoun’s story seemed a walking embodiment of Georgia’s contradictions: a state where a rising multiracial coalition of voters sent two Democrats — a Black preacher and a Jewish millennial — to the Senate in January, but where thousands of voters also elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, vanguard of an incendiary brand of hard-right politics.

Some Black residents of Americus, Mr. Calhoun’s hometown, were not shocked that a person so worldly could end up doing something like this. “The Jekyll and Hyde effect,” said the Rev. Mathis Kearse Wright Jr., the head of the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter.

He knew Mr. Calhoun, who gave donations and regularly bought tickets to the group’s annual banquet. But Rev. Wright suggested that the racism deep at the root of Georgia’s history was still very much alive, even if white people, including some of those who saw themselves as progressive, did not want to admit it.

“What President Trump did was allow it to bud and to grow,” he said. “A lot of people who had been suppressing it no longer felt that they had to suppress it.”

--02-18-21 RIGHT—WE NEED MORE GUNS???: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mother-five-shot-killed-after-children-find-gun-her-purse-n1258234
Mother of five shot and killed after children find gun in her purse, police say. Gabriel Alexis Henderson's youngest child was wounded in the shooting and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/news/texas-mayor-resigned-telling-people-111237826.html
A Texas mayor resigned after telling people it was their own fault if they froze when power went out in the deadly winter storms.

--02-17-21: us.yahoo.com/news/architect-texas-electricity-market-says-082500855.html
The architect of Texas' electricity market says it's working as planned. Critics compare it to late Soviet Russia.

The Texas power grid, entirely contained within the state to avoid federal regulation, is facing renewed scrutiny after buckling under four days of sub-freezing temperatures. "Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Tuesday.

"This is unacceptable," and the Texas government and legislature must find ways "ensure that our state never experiences power outages like this again."

This isn't the state's first rodeo with widespread blackouts amid unseasonable cold, however. The Texas power grid is designed to independently manage hot summers, not really cold winters. But "what has sent Texas reeling is not an engineering problem," Will Englund reports at The Washington Post.

"It is a financial structure for power generation that offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. In the name of deregulation and free markets, critics say, Texas has created an electric grid that puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service."

--02-18-21: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-exodus-of-republican-voters-tired-of-trump-could-push-party-further-right/ar-BB1dNtzs?li=BBnb7Kz
Analysis: Exodus of Republican voters tired of Trump could push party further right

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A surge of Republicans quitting the party to renounce Donald Trump after the deadly Capitol riot could hurt moderates in next year's primaries, adding a capstone to Trump's legacy as president: A potentially lasting rightward push on the party.

More than 68,000 Republicans have left the party in recent weeks in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, crucial states for Democrats' hopes of keeping control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 2022, state voter data shows.

That's about three times the roughly 23,000 Democrats who left their party in the same states over the same time period.

Compared to the Republicans who stayed put, those who fled were more concentrated in the left-leaning counties around big cities, which political analysts said suggested moderate Republicans could be leading the defections.

If the exodus is sustained, it will be to the advantage of candidates in the Republican Party's nomination contests who espouse views that play well with its Trump-supporting base but not with a broader electorate.

That could make it harder for Republican candidates to beat Democrats in November, said Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford University.

"If these voters are leaving the party permanently, it's really bad news for Republicans," Fiorina said.

Most of the defectors switched to having no party affiliation or joined a minor political party, though many registered as Democrats, according to publicly available voter registration data that is regularly updated by states.

U.S. elections are administered by state governments rather than by Washington.

The shifts come as Trump is looking to assert his influence as the party's leader after losing to Democrat Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election. Trump lashed out this week against Mitch McConnell, the most senior elected Republican, after the Senate Minority Leader voted to acquit him on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 attack but still said he was responsible for his supporters' actions.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Mandi Merritt declined to comment on the flight from the party but said: "Americans of all stripes will know the Republican Party is the party that is fighting for them."

THE LAST STRAW

Many of the people who left the party did so because of Trump, interviews with more than three dozen people in the three states showed.

They also said they were motivated to leave by Republican lawmakers' continued support for Trump even after he spent months before the Capitol attack spreading falsehoods about the election.

Several said they were leaving because the party didn't support Trump enough, a sign of the deep divisions that have led to calls by some Republicans for new political parties.

Diana Hepner, 76, a retired attorney in Florida's Nassau County near Jacksonville, described herself as a fiscal conservative who was turned off by Trump's rhetoric.

"I hung in there with the Republican Party thinking we could get past the elements Trump brought," she said. "Jan. 6 was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Hepner, who joined the Democratic Party, hopes she can be a centrist influence on its nomination contests.

The roughly 40,000 Floridians who left the Republican Party between mid-December and mid-February were but a sliver of the more than 5 million who remained, according to the state's voter registration data.

But even modest defections could make a difference in close nomination contests, particularly in states like Florida and Pennsylvania which restrict voting in nomination contests to members of that party.

In Florida's Aug. 18 primary elections last year, two Republican candidates who won their nomination contest by fewer than 1,500 votes went on to win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

One was Byron Donalds, a vocal Trump supporter who sought retiring Republican representative Francis Rooney's seat on the state's Gulf Coast. Donalds won the primary by just under 800 votes, edging out a nine-candidate field that included other Trump supporters as well as moderates.

MODERATES LOSE

For the small group of Republican lawmakers who have been critical of Trump, including the 17 House and Senate members who voted to impeach or convict the former president, fewer moderate voters could make fending off primary challengers more difficult, said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida.

The exodus appears related to sagging support for Republicans in relatively affluent areas, like the suburban areas that helped deliver Biden's victory in November.

Of the nearly 19,000 Pennsylvanians who have left the Republican Party this year through Feb. 16, more than half live in the urban and suburban counties in and around the state's biggest cities, according to state voter registration data. Among the Republicans who remain in the party, about four in 10 live in those same counties.

Defections were similarly concentrated around big cities in Florida and in North Carolina, where more than 10,000 Republicans left the party in January, according to voter data.

Political analysts said the changes in voter registration were unusual for the months following a presidential election, and that it remained to be seen whether the exodus will continue or reverse itself.

Some might still return to the fold, they said.

"I don't want to say I'm done with the Republican Party," said Robert Abelman, a finance company executive living just outside Philadelphia in Lafayette Hill, who said he voted for Biden.

Citing his "disgust" with Trump's hold over the party, Abelman, 56, cut his Republican ties this month when he filled out a form indicating he now has no party affiliation.

He said he was interested in new party options, such as a center-right breakaway party that dozens of former Republican officials have discussed forming.

Yes. Because if Ted Cruz had stayed in Texas it would have solved the whole energy crisis. You can bet yer ass that there are plenty of Texans that have the means to get out of the state and did so. Some of them simply took a short drive, some took flights to exotic places. The public loves to kick people who have nothing to do with creating or fixing their problems. From the look of the problems Texas is having, the infrastructure that is missing or in disrepair has been such since before Cruz was born...