Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family this week as Texas dealt with a winter storm that as of Thursday still has left 500,000 without power, Fox News has confirmed.
Photographs of Cruz, R-Texas, at an airport began circulating on social media late Wednesday, with people alleging that the senator had left the state for Cancun amid a major crisis. A Republican source told Fox News that the allegations Cruz was traveling to the Mexican city are true.
I don't wish to speak ill of the dead, but I think I have more respect for guys like Limbaugh or Trump than I do for guys like Cruz. Please don't read that that I support or condone Limbaugh's or Trump's rhetoric, because I think I've made it obvious throughout these threads that is not true.
The thing is with Trump and Limbaugh, is at least you knew where they stood. They were out in the open. They embrace(d) the role of the heel.
Cruz is just so insanely conniving and opportunistic to a sociopathic level. It's become glaringly obvious that he has no conviction or core principles. He just does whatever is best for himself at any given moment, while preaching the opposite.
I know the comment back to that is "that's every politician" and while that is true to some degree, there is still a spectrum of self-interest among them, and he is still at the far end of it.
I don't know that I agree with you. I find from my viewpoint that all three of them are very opportunistic individuals. From my viewpoint most pundits, politicians and public political figures fall into this category to at least some extent.
We don't really "know where they stand". What we do know is that they have a target audience. They have chosen a demographic that they cater to. By creating controversy it increases their ratings, the publicity they garner and increases the worth of their brand.
Could they be sincere in all cases? I imagine that may be possible. But if you follow the money and the power structure I think you can easily see why I'm skeptical that many of these people are genuine in everything they say.
When creating controversy increases your popularity, influence, wealth and power I will always question the motivation behind it.
Texas mayor resigns after telling residents desperate for power and heat "only the strong will survive"
By Christopher Brito
February 18, 2021 / 6:55 AM / CBS News
A Texas mayor resigned after seemingly telling residents to fend for themselves in a Facebook post amid a deadly and record-breaking winter storm that left much of the state without power Tuesday.
As then-mayor of Colorado City, Tim Boyd wrote an insensitive message for people desperate for heat, water and power, saying "only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish.]"
"No one owes you [or] your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this!" he said. "Sink or swim it's your choice! 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."
Boyd told people without water to "think outside the box to survive" and called people waiting in the cold because they have no power "lazy" – even as authorities were telling people to stay home to avoid icy roads.
"Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout!!" he said, before finishing off his message in capital letters,"DONT [be] PART OF PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!!"
The post was deleted, but circulated widely on social media. Boyd received intense backlash for his remarks and later announced he quit his office in another Facebook message.
"I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves," Boyd wrote. "I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used!"
Boyd said his wife was "fired" after his comments and that he wasn't speaking as an official of Colorado City or the county where it sits, Mitchell County. He added that he had not signed up to run again for mayor earlier this month.
The official Colorado City website listed Boyd as mayor as of Wednesday morning. CBS News reached out for more information, but did not immediately hear back.
At least 17 people are dead and almost 3 million homes and businesses are still without power in Texas on Wednesday morning after this week's major winter storm. Some of the coldest temperatures in decades hit the Lone Star State, resulting in water restrictions because of burst pipes and a lack of electricity at treatment plants. While water and power are being restored, the weather prompted many residents to step up for each other.
As there should be, especially about stupid things like this that don't matter. This is purely a "gotcha" story about optics because there isn't a single thing he can do to help the people of Texas at the moment.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
There is nobility in it. He was elected by Texans to represent them. He is supposed to care about his constituents. Standing by the side of the very people you represent in a time of crisis is what leadership looks like. And just for giggles and grins, let's look at the excuse he provided. I mean even he knows he screwed up.
Ted Cruz says he went to Cancun during Texas crisis because he wanted to be a "good dad"
By Zoe Christen Jones, Kris Van Cleave
Updated on: February 18, 2021 / 1:39 PM / CBS News
Senator Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family for a trip this week as Texas deals with the aftermath of a winter storm that left millions without power, an airline industry source familiar with the situation told CBS News. The Republican senator is expected to return on a flight home Thursday afternoon.
Photos of Cruz arriving at the airport for the trip went viral on social media, sparking widespread criticism of the senator for leaving during the emergency. Cruz on Thursday said he wanted to escort his children who were leaving for a trip with friends.
"With school canceled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon," Cruz said in a statement. The senator said he's been in "constant communication" with local leaders "to get to the bottom of what happened" in Texas
"The greatest state in the greatest country in the world has been without power. We have food lines, gas lines, and people sleeping at the neighbors' houses. Our homes are freezing and our lights are out. Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too."
At least 25 deaths were attributed to the storm, 11 of the victims were from Texas. Widespread outages left over 3 million without power this week, although most had been restored. More than 500,000 residents were still without power as of Thursday afternoon.
Some of Cruz's political opponents have called on him to resign.
It must be a terrible thing when you can't trust your wife to escort your children to Mexico without you accompanying them. This is what it looks like when Cruz had to come up with a lame excuse for doing the wrong thing.
I don't know that I agree with you. I find from my viewpoint that all three of them are very opportunistic individuals. From my viewpoint most pundits, politicians and public political figures fall into this category to at least some extent.
We don't really "know where they stand". What we do know is that they have a target audience. They have chosen a demographic that they cater to. By creating controversy it increases their ratings, the publicity they garner and increases the worth of their brand.
Could they be sincere in all cases? I imagine that may be possible. But if you follow the money and the power structure I think you can easily see why I'm skeptical that many of these people are genuine in everything they say.
When creating controversy increases your popularity, influence, wealth and power I will always question the motivation behind it.
I agree they are all opportunistic, which is why I talk about the "spectrum of opportunism" so to speak.
In my view, guys like Trump and Limbaugh are going to have their bases that they cater to and that doesn't change. When they got bullied - often times deservedly so - they at least stuck to their guns, for right or wrong (often the latter).
Cruz got absolutely bullied by Trump, including insults to his wife, and still hitched his wagon to Trump's horse. After all that he stated in the primaries, he's now like the Toady to Trump's Scott Farkas, and in my mind, that's even worse.
To add another wrinkle, I also think he's a lot worse because he actually knows what he's doing and is more calculated. Trump is like a bull in a china shop.
He was, since as long as I can remember, someone who likes a good verbal back and forth and he got more cavalier about it during his presidency. He did a fantastic job of burning bridges while never building any except of course this far right crew. But he'll through anyone under the bus including them if he has too. He has clearly demonstrated that superpower.
Optics aside, I have zero expectation that Cruz is the person that can fix things so probably in Texas's best interest he stay in Mexico for awhile. He is quite the political tool. And no, he ain't gonna resign so the story above where someone is calling for him to do so is just hot air.
I get where you're coming from, but this is an awful look on his part.
You have to take into account that he invites this kind of scrutiny on himself from all his inflammatory tactics as well.
Was it last year that he was sending out Tweets mocking California for the rolling blackouts and then saying the Democrats wanted to make this standard across the country? I think he also mocked another politician for telling people to stay at home while that politician was on vacation in the Caribbean somewhere, too (a deserved criticism).
The thing with Cruz is that, yeah, he's not in a crucial role currently that can help out the crisis, but how many years did he have the opportunity to advocate for infrastructural improvements to places like Texas to avoid the current calamities.
With that all in mind, he's now sending and furthering the image that he's completely out of touch with his constituents and their best interests.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
this is just straight up garbage. i tried looking at this from every angle i possibly could, and yet this comment couldn't get any less garbage.
yes, he is a freaking US senator. a republican senator who not even a year ago, trashed california over their energy grid during a crazy heat wave and called it poor democratic leadership. now, a US SENATOR, 1 of just 100 people on the planet with that level of influence, one of the guys who fights at the FEDERAL level for his oil and gas overlords, is in a state going through a cold front crisis and has a massive failure in the energy grid he helped fight to deregulate.
instead of being on the phones and trying to get generators to his people, instead of being on the phones with his oil and gas corporate masters and trying to get something, ANYTHING delivered to people in need, instead of being there with his people trying to assist coordinate with emergency services on the ground, instead of putting pressure on congress to get back in session - through zoom calls or ANYTHING- to get emergency relief and a bill that focuses specifically the US energy grid, instead of doing the bare minimal and at least checking on his people, he takes his ass to cancun, mexico?
but according to you...eh, whatever. i mean nothing he can do so he might as well go party while the same people he is supposed to be representing die in the cold, right?
every time you post you prove more and more why you vote GOP: cause empathy and leadership just doesn't mean jack crap to you whatsoever. freaking pathetic.
if he's doing work in Mexico to work on getting things up and running again I have no problem with this... going to mexico guaranteed he would have power and internet.
I 100% agree there's a lot he can do and should be doing... I can see though if he was worried about losing power/internet then it'd be hard for him to make those calls and try to organize things.
If he is trying to organize and call his people from Mexico then I have no problem with him going somewhere with guaranteed infrastructure... if he's just vacationing or hanging out then he's a bigger slim than I thought...
Allegedly he was being a good dad - getting his family over there and coming back tomorrow .... the problem with that is there is absolutely no need for Ted to be on that flight. None. Get your family out of town, sure but no need to accompany them at all.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
Forget it man, the mob see's what they want to see.
If he opened his home for people to stay, they would find something wrong with that.
Allegedly he was being a good dad - getting his family over there and coming back tomorrow .... the problem with that is there is absolutely no need for Ted to be on that flight. None. Get your family out of town, sure but no need to accompany them at all.
Yep, you would just send your family off to Mexico and let them get to their destination on their own.
You do know that many people get in cabs down there and end up out in the desert. A US Senators family wouldn't be a target.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
this is just straight up garbage. i tried looking at this from every angle i possibly could, and yet this comment couldn't get any less garbage.
yes, he is a freaking US senator. a republican senator who not even a year ago, trashed california over their energy grid during a crazy heat wave and called it poor democratic leadership. now, a US SENATOR, 1 of just 100 people on the planet with that level of influence, one of the guys who fights at the FEDERAL level for his oil and gas overlords, is in a state going through a cold front crisis and has a massive failure in the energy grid he helped fight to deregulate.
instead of being on the phones and trying to get generators to his people, instead of being on the phones with his oil and gas corporate masters and trying to get something, ANYTHING delivered to people in need, instead of being there with his people trying to assist coordinate with emergency services on the ground, instead of putting pressure on congress to get back in session - through zoom calls or ANYTHING- to get emergency relief and a bill that focuses specifically the US energy grid, instead of doing the bare minimal and at least checking on his people, he takes his ass to cancun, mexico?
but according to you...eh, whatever. i mean nothing he can do so he might as well go party while the same people he is supposed to be representing die in the cold, right?
every time you post you prove more and more why you vote GOP: cause empathy and leadership just doesn't mean jack crap to you whatsoever. freaking pathetic.
You call my post garbage, you call what Ted Cruz did garbage.. fine, it's garbage.. but it's one styrofoam cup on the garbage pile that is our political system and the entitled bastards that run it... and the only reason it's a story is because Ted Cruz is a republican and because the optics of it are worse than somebody like Pelosi getting into her chauffeur driven car at San Fran airport and getting shuttled to her multi-million dollar home past all of the homeless people in the streets who live and die like that every day..
Does anybody whine about the Pelosis, the Obamas, the Clintons, et.al. using their privilege to live significantly better AND SAFER than the people who voted for them? And they live like that every freakin' day of their lives. While countless people in their districts are fighting urban crime wars, sleeping under bridges, without heat in the winter, without clean water, dying in the cold.. there the politicians are, living like royalty, EVERY FREAKING DAY while the suckers that voted for them for decades struggle and suffer and die....
And the only reason I focused on Pelosi is because she's easy... could pick any number of people to use in this example.. well, that and she was awarded the JFK Profile in Courage Award.. takes a ton of courage to live like she does while others are crapping in the streets of San Fran...
And as for your last sentence.. you are proving why you vote Dem.. because they have conned your ass into believing they are different and that they care. If you were in the street, you'd be chasing after her limo begging for food while she sped off to do a press conference to blame republicans for not doing anything about your situation..
Oh - you mean like the HUGE story about Pelosi and her hair cut?
Maybe it's a MEH story ... but giving the guy a 100% free pass and enabling him and what others like him do isn't cool no matter which side of the isle they are on.
Now, look... He bought those tickets and booked that reservation on a vacation week, you want to reimburse him fine, but dammit, if it were me or you our butt would have been on the plane.
Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family this week as Texas dealt with a winter storm that as of Thursday still has left 500,000 without power, Fox News has confirmed.
Photographs of Cruz, R-Texas, at an airport began circulating on social media late Wednesday, with people alleging that the senator had left the state for Cancun amid a major crisis. A Republican source told Fox News that the allegations Cruz was traveling to the Mexican city are true.
And it's all the democrats + liberals fault, (that should be enough explanation right there.) but I'll explain,
Because the libs want conformance to a false, cult, religion, of climate change, that stops the usage, (procurement), of regular time tested methods to make electricity, things like coal, and whatnot.
Problems in Texas? ya it's the Liberals' fault, they seem to hate America. It's a shame too, because Texans' are nice, and deserve better. .02
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
this is just straight up garbage. i tried looking at this from every angle i possibly could, and yet this comment couldn't get any less garbage.
yes, he is a freaking US senator. a republican senator who not even a year ago, trashed california over their energy grid during a crazy heat wave and called it poor democratic leadership. now, a US SENATOR, 1 of just 100 people on the planet with that level of influence, one of the guys who fights at the FEDERAL level for his oil and gas overlords, is in a state going through a cold front crisis and has a massive failure in the energy grid he helped fight to deregulate.
instead of being on the phones and trying to get generators to his people, instead of being on the phones with his oil and gas corporate masters and trying to get something, ANYTHING delivered to people in need, instead of being there with his people trying to assist coordinate with emergency services on the ground, instead of putting pressure on congress to get back in session - through zoom calls or ANYTHING- to get emergency relief and a bill that focuses specifically the US energy grid, instead of doing the bare minimal and at least checking on his people, he takes his ass to cancun, mexico?
but according to you...eh, whatever. i mean nothing he can do so he might as well go party while the same people he is supposed to be representing die in the cold, right?
every time you post you prove more and more why you vote GOP: cause empathy and leadership just doesn't mean jack crap to you whatsoever. freaking pathetic.
And don't think that Texans aren't mad as hell right now either. When I lived there they would break out parkas for 50-60 degree weather. Between the bad weather and the grid failing, they are hopping mad.
Allegedly he was being a good dad - getting his family over there and coming back tomorrow .... the problem with that is there is absolutely no need for Ted to be on that flight. None. Get your family out of town, sure but no need to accompany them at all.
So basically he abandoned Texas in a time of great need and takes his family to a tropical getaway... Then he gets called out on it (I'm sure twitter is hammering him), and decides to abandon his family there to come back and look like a Senator... Scumbag.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
this is just straight up garbage. i tried looking at this from every angle i possibly could, and yet this comment couldn't get any less garbage.
yes, he is a freaking US senator. a republican senator who not even a year ago, trashed california over their energy grid during a crazy heat wave and called it poor democratic leadership. now, a US SENATOR, 1 of just 100 people on the planet with that level of influence, one of the guys who fights at the FEDERAL level for his oil and gas overlords, is in a state going through a cold front crisis and has a massive failure in the energy grid he helped fight to deregulate.
instead of being on the phones and trying to get generators to his people, instead of being on the phones with his oil and gas corporate masters and trying to get something, ANYTHING delivered to people in need, instead of being there with his people trying to assist coordinate with emergency services on the ground, instead of putting pressure on congress to get back in session - through zoom calls or ANYTHING- to get emergency relief and a bill that focuses specifically the US energy grid, instead of doing the bare minimal and at least checking on his people, he takes his ass to cancun, mexico?
but according to you...eh, whatever. i mean nothing he can do so he might as well go party while the same people he is supposed to be representing die in the cold, right?
every time you post you prove more and more why you vote GOP: cause empathy and leadership just doesn't mean jack crap to you whatsoever. freaking pathetic.
And don't think that Texans aren't mad as hell right now either. When I lived there they would break out parkas for 50-60 degree weather. Between the bad weather and the grid failing, they are hopping mad.
exactly. there's conservative texans ticked the hell off at Cruz and the texas GOP for fighting like hell to deregulate the energy grid, and yet DC and others got the audacity to somehow blame it on other people who aren't even from the state.
its just simply mind blowing. i read his post again and still came away more baffled at his level of ignorance and deflection than the last time.
Imagine if Trump was still in power.It would all be his fault while Biden sits in the basement of the WH playing with his toes.
You're right... Trump would have thrown paper towels at them. Or handled it like the pandemic. Honestly, they're better off with Biden even if is just sleeping in the oval and drooling down his shirt. That would still be 1000x better than a Trump response.
Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family this week as Texas dealt with a winter storm that as of Thursday still has left 500,000 without power, Fox News has confirmed.
Photographs of Cruz, R-Texas, at an airport began circulating on social media late Wednesday, with people alleging that the senator had left the state for Cancun amid a major crisis. A Republican source told Fox News that the allegations Cruz was traveling to the Mexican city are true.
And it's all the democrats + liberals fault, (that should be enough explanation right there.) but I'll explain,
Because the libs want conformance to a false, cult, religion, of climate change, that stops the usage, (procurement), of regular time tested methods to make electricity, things like coal, and whatnot.
Problems in Texas? ya it's the Liberals' fault, they seem to hate America. It's a shame too, because Texans' are nice, and deserve better. .02
Bro, it's much easier to just stop taking anything they say seriously. Until I see Trumpians start to show some redeeming qualities and start acting like normal people again, I'll treat them like the 800 pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends is not there. I'd much rather talk to the gorilla tbh.
Bro, it's much easier to just stop taking anything they say seriously. Until I see Trumpians start to show some redeeming qualities and start acting like normal people again, I'll treat them like the 800 pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends is not there. I'd much rather talk to the gorilla tbh.
Normal like Sprial, Clem, Portland, Rocket. OK gotcha, I start working on being normal.
No, not at all. I remember when you weren't led around by the nose by FOX and Friends, back when we might have had differences but we could still talk to each other. Trump really pulled a number on all of you but I'm sure you don't see that and I'm wasting my time responding.
Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family this week as Texas dealt with a winter storm that as of Thursday still has left 500,000 without power, Fox News has confirmed.
Photographs of Cruz, R-Texas, at an airport began circulating on social media late Wednesday, with people alleging that the senator had left the state for Cancun amid a major crisis. A Republican source told Fox News that the allegations Cruz was traveling to the Mexican city are true.
And it's all the democrats + liberals fault, (that should be enough explanation right there.) but I'll explain,
Because the libs want conformance to a false, cult, religion, of climate change, that stops the usage, (procurement), of regular time tested methods to make electricity, things like coal, and whatnot.
Problems in Texas? ya it's the Liberals' fault, they seem to hate America. It's a shame too, because Texans' are nice, and deserve better. .02
It's already been reported that the root of the issue is lack of preparing the infrastructure. Ercot went for profit over security.
Just one more LIE and trying to blame LIBERALS for something they did to themselves. Pretty much everything that poster writes these days is imaginary or just simple lies.
Figured I had better share this before Fish claims another victory...
Heroic Ted Cruz Travels To Cancun To Lasso The Sun And Bring It Back To Texas
CANCUN—Ted Cruz is being heralded as a hero after he traveled to Cancun in the middle of the worst energy crisis in recent memory in order to lasso the sun and bring it back to Texas.
The media quickly condemned Cruz for his trip but apologized when they realized he was actually saving the state by bringing the sun back for them.
"Don't worry, y'all -- Ted is comin' back, and the sun's comin' with him!" Cruz cried as he rode along a beautiful Cancun beach, spooling up his lasso to catch the sun. "Yeeeeehaw!" After a few unsuccessful attempts, Cruz remained undeterred, riding back and forth across the beach, trying to catch the sunlight.
"He's a tricky lil' rascal, boy howdy!" Cruz said. "But we'll get 'em, just you watch! Darn' tootin'!"
He was also attempting to bottle the water and bring it back to the Texans who have had no water for days, but advisers warned him that drinking the Mexican water would probably just make matters worse.
Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say
Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said that grid operators implemented blackouts to avoid a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months.
Texas’ power grid was “seconds and minutes” away from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months, officials with the entity that operates the grid said Thursday.
As millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.
The quick decision that grid operators made in the early hours of Monday morning to begin what was intended to be rolling blackouts — but lasted days for millions of Texans — occurred because operators were seeing warning signs that massive amounts of energy supply was dropping off the grid.
As natural gas fired plants, utility scale wind power and coal plants tripped offline due to the extreme cold brought by the winter storm, the amount of power supplied to the grid to be distributed across the state fell rapidly. At the same time, demand was increasing as consumers and businesses turned up the heat and stayed inside to avoid the weather.
“It needed to be addressed immediately," said Bill Magness, president of ERCOT. “It was seconds and minutes [from possible failure] given the amount of generation that was coming off the system.”
Grid operators had to act quickly to cut the amount of power distributed, Magness said, because if they had waited, “then what happens in that next minute might be that three more [power generation] units come offline, and then you’re sunk.”
Magness said on Wednesday that if operators had not acted in that moment, the state could have suffered blackouts that “could have occurred for months,” and left Texas in an “indeterminately long” crisis.
While generators rapidly dropped off the grid as the weather worsened, operators monitored the difference between the supply of power on the grid and the demand for that power. As supply dwindled and demand grew, the margin narrowed to more and more dangerous levels, forcing grid operators to enact emergency protocols to either increase supply or decrease demand.
The worst case scenario: Demand for power outstrips the supply of power generation available on the grid, causing equipment to catch fire, substations to blow and power lines to go down.
If the grid had gone totally offline, the physical damage to power infrastructure from overwhelming the grid could have taken months to repair, said Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewables at Enverus, an oil and gas software and information company headquartered in Austin.
“As chaotic as it was, the whole grid could’ve been in blackout,” she said. “ERCOT is getting a lot of heat, but the fact that it wasn’t worse is because of those grid operators.”
ERCOT has three emergency procedures to balance the equation between supply and demand. Grid operators can call on other grids for help — Texas’ grid has limited connections to the eastern U.S. and Mexico. But in this week’s storm, so much power went offline that other grids couldn’t close the gap, in part because those grids were being stressed by the same storm.
Next, ERCOT can try to reduce demand by interrupting power to large industrial customers that have previously agreed to have power cut during an emergency.
If that doesn’t work — and it didn’t in this case — ERCOT has a last resort option: ordering transmission companies to reduce demand on the system with rotating outages for customers.
That’s what happened in the early hours of Monday morning.
Usually, those outages are limited to less than 45 minutes. But this week, the outages lasted days. That’s likely because after ERCOT ordered companies to stop providing power to customers, even more power generation tripped offline, and it was not able to “roll” the outages effectively, Johnson explained.
The amount of power ERCOT needed utilities to cut back in order to prevent complete blackout was so great that the companies didn’t have flexibility to roll power from one area to another to spread out the pain.
The emergency procedures are designed to avoid overwhelming the entire Texas grid. If that had occurred, even as power generators recovered from the cold, ERCOT would have been unable to quickly reconnect them back to the grid, Johnson said.
Grid operators would have needed to slowly and carefully bring generators and customers back online, all the while taking care to not to cause more damage to the grid. It’s a delicate process, Johnson explained, because each part of the puzzle — the generators producing power, the transmission lines that move the power and the customers that use it — must be carefully managed.
“It has to balance constantly,” she said. “Once a grid goes down, it’s hard to bring it back online. If you bring on too many customers, then you have another outage.”
So somebody tell me again how this was the libs? Or how natural gas is way better than solar and wind? smh
This is a Republican deregulation problem and crap for infrastructure because we don't invest in America's future. Just add in some global warming wild weather and BOOM! Texas craps the bed.
EDIT: My buddy GM or some other fossil proponent will be along shortly to talk about the virtues of "Clean Coal"...
I'm not so quick to pin this on deregulation. Not saying it isn't... but it was a pretty crazy thing that happened (temperature drop/snow) that they were not at all prepared for. The south just isn't built for that kind of cold plain and simple, and you can see that born out in many ways.
I had a long post written up about how trying to nail Ted Cruz on this was silly, but it turned into a disorganized mess. Mad respect to Beto and AOC for rolling up their sleeves (so to speak). I think holding up their actions in front of Cruz does much more to hurt him than trying to slam him for attempting to look like he cares about his family.
Yep, I couldn't care less about Cruz but I agree it was snake like for him to slither away. But knowing Cruz, who would expect anything more from him? But some of the things this flaming of Cruz has the right posting are just hilarious. Trump Jr.'s post above was the second best thing I saw today.
I'm not so quick to pin this on deregulation. Not saying it isn't... but it was a pretty crazy thing that happened (temperature drop/snow) that they were not at all prepared for. The south just isn't built for that kind of cold plain and simple, and you can see that born out in many ways.
I had a long post written up about how trying to nail Ted Cruz on this was silly, but it turned into a disorganized mess. Mad respect to Beto and AOC for rolling up their sleeves (so to speak). I think holding up their actions in front of Cruz does much more to hurt him than trying to slam him for attempting to look like he cares about his family.
you can't be serious.
deregulating the grid for the last 10 years allowed the Texas government not to winterized and maintain their infrastructure. why is it that states further north still have their energy grids working? and by the way, the vast majority of energy in texas still comes from oil and gas. it was a complete failure, and can be DIRECTLY pointed to a lack of leadership and management maintaining the energy sector.
____ About 56 percent of Texas' energy comes from natural gas, just under 24 percent comes from wind, 19 percent from coal, and almost 9 percent from nuclear energy.
"About a third of our thermal fleet is offline," said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the University of Texas in Austin who specializes in the power grid. "We typically count on about 90 percent of it being available during a peak event."
"From freezing gas wells and gas lines, to depressurization of our natural gas infrastructure because so many homes and businesses are calling for gas at the same time, we just don't have enough fuel," he said.
the texas GOP specifically went for cheap, and got cheap results when it mattered the most. the federal government a few years ago tried to get the country to modernize their grid, and texas fought like hell to do the exact opposite.
___
Rick Perry: 'Texans would be without electricity for longer' to 'keep the federal government out'
just stop it already. if the GOP at the federal level and the GOP at the state level didn't fight so hard deregulate the energy sector, it wouldnt be anywhere near this bad right now.
those politicians seriously tried to blame AOC and wind turbines for not working, KNOWING the majority of their power source came from oil and gas.
and let me repeat: Wind turbines and solar is working perfectly fine in much colder environments. but ya know, proper maintenance and all that.
right now you're the dude who wants to blame outside factors for the reason your car broke down, despite the fact that you haven't gotten an oil change and service done on the car in years.
Power equipment in the North is working because they're designed around the appropriate temperature range (with a safety factor). The weather we got over the past couple weeks is no biggy, relatively speaking. Here in Cinci, the worst thing was that the roads were impassable for a while (again, because we don't usually get very much annual snowfall, so we don't have the snowplows that Cleveland does).
I just don't think that you can jump to conclusions because of what happened after such a unusual/unprecedented weather event. Are we going scorched earth on building codes down there because they weren't designed with this type of weather in mind (pipes bursting awfully quickly, didn't happen when I lost heat in my house when the temps were near 0).
I'm not going to defend people that are trying to blame AOC for something that happened in Texas. I think we can at least agree on that.
And with the car analogy... the way I see it the car is serviced just fine and would've run great, except I crashed because I never bought snow tires because why would I when it rarely, if ever, gets close to freezing.
I might tend to agree with you if they didn't know or hadn't been warned that they needed to winterize their grid for a very long time. When someone knew, when someone is warned, but decided to ignore those warnings, the fault lies with them.
Texas grid fails to weatherize, repeats mistake feds cited 10 years ago
I think the biggest problem with Cruz in this aspect is how he conducted himself BEFORE all of this happened. We all know that one person or people who are self-righteous and throw a lot of shade toward everyone else for not doing things the right way. Then, when things blow up in their face, it makes for a feeding frenzy.
Allegedly he was being a good dad - getting his family over there and coming back tomorrow .... the problem with that is there is absolutely no need for Ted to be on that flight. None. Get your family out of town, sure but no need to accompany them at all.
Yep, you would just send your family off to Mexico and let them get to their destination on their own.
You do know that many people get in cabs down there and end up out in the desert. A US Senators family wouldn't be a target.
Of course that is what you would do.
I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that there is adequate security for his family, with or without him being present, from both our government and theirs.
Well you could never trust your wife to do it without you. I mean she might get lost on her way to the hotel or something. A woman could never take her children on vacation without having a man around to be in charge. How could they ever survive!?
curious what you all mean by "winterize" the grid?
I assumed the problem was the extreme cold pushed people to turn on their heaters, which use much more power than the A/C they usually run. And that the sudden increase of demand was too much for the system.
Where as up north, the "expected" usage is based on people using heaters in the winter.
I'm only speculating here, because there has never been an issue that I know of before, and I don't see why the cold itself would have much issue on the grid other than ice bringing down lines.
That's fair, thank you for posting those articles. There's definitely some info in there that I hadn't seen before. Additionally, I'll admit to you and swish (that I didn't mention before) that power generation and providing power to people and businesses is critical (interrupting power to people can result in a catastrophic effect... obviously). Based on that, you would think such a critical piece of infrastructure wouldn't fail so spectacularly.
But buried in that second article was a small paragraph about how many power companies DID implement some weather-related mitigations, but many of those mitigations did little in the face of such an unusual storm. So again, Many of the people that are so quick to point the finger at things they would normally disagree with come off as disingenuous. More govt is not the solution to everything.
The part about being so isolated from outside power grids is something that I'm a little more interested in. It sounds like that could've been something that could've helped, but it wasn't explained at all. I'm going to look into that.
While that did happen, the real issue was that the extreme cold/snow also shut down power generation while the demand that you pointed out was ramping up. At some point, when demand exceeds supply of power, you risk damaging infrastructure due to overload. The last-ditch measure to prevent transformers blowing, powerlines going down, and other hardware damage is to turn off the power and artificially lower the demand (planned blackouts). The trouble here is that they kept losing power sources, and weren't able to get their output back up, so rolling blackouts turned into blackouts while people were caught dealing with the cold.
'Winterizing' here means implementing cold mitigations such that wind farms, coal/natural gas plants, etc are able to continue to put power out even when it gets real cold and snowy.
If they were offered up, I assume medical experts told the city they didn't have enough for the population size. They probably first ran in to serious shortages after 911.
If not, why not offer up more balloons for city office parties?
Kind of like the mayor of NYC moaning about needing more respirators when a few years before the Trump administration offered to sell them many?
You always have the answers.
I had no idea this thread was about Covid. I'm sorry the truth bothers you. That is what happened. Texas was warned a decade ago this could happen and what steps they could take to avoid it. They chose not to. As a result their natural gas lines froze up.
The "answer" isn't hard to find. Maybe you should try to to look at the facts rather than try to change the topic? Nah, that would mean you want to know the truth rather than try to circumvent the truth. We can't have that.
If they were offered up, I assume medical experts told the city they didn't have enough for the population size. They probably first ran in to serious shortages after 911.
If not, why not offer up more balloons for city office parties?
Why not start a thread about it rather than attempt to trash this thread with something unrelated?
Cuomo is being investigated by the FBI over hiding Covid deaths. Maybe you should start a thread about that?
If they were offered up, I assume medical experts told the city they didn't have enough for the population size. They probably first ran in to serious shortages after 911.
If not, why not offer up more balloons for city office parties?
Why not start a thread about it rather than attempt to trash this thread with something unrelated?
Cuomo is being investigated by the FBI over hiding Covid deaths. Maybe you should start a thread about that?
I don't live in NY and can't vote for Cuomo, so I don't really care.
Since when are you concerned about trashing threads?
If they were offered up, I assume medical experts told the city they didn't have enough for the population size. They probably first ran in to serious shortages after 911.
If not, why not offer up more balloons for city office parties?
Not to sidetrack from the Cruz and Texas story, but here's the story on the ventilators that NY was not advised to purchase a stockpile of back in 2015.
"He had a chance to buy -- in 2015 -- 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down. I'm not blaming him or anything else. But he shouldn't be talking about us. He's supposed to be buying his own ventilators. We are going to help," Trump said in a Fox News town hall held at the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday.
"They could have had 15 or 16,000 two years ago and all they had to do was order them. They can't blame us for that," he said again in the interview.
Trump appeared to be dramatizing a report from a New York Department of Health task force in 2015 which predicted that, if faced with a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, New York would run into a ventilator shortage to the tune of 15,000. The report was recently resurfaced by Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and supporter of Trump since 2016, who wrote an op-ed about it in the New York Post. Her op-ed was later picked up by the far-right blog Gateway Pundit. The report, however, did not recommend that New York Health Department should have stocked up on ventilators, nor did it find a low-cost option to do so, as Trump indicated Tuesday. Instead, the 2015 report acknowledged that New York should instead prepare for a moderate scenario and rely on federal resources if faced with a severe scenario.
"In the event of an overwhelming burden on the health care system, New York will not have sufficient ventilators to meet critical care needs despite its emergency stockpile. If the most severe forecast becomes a reality, New York State and the rest of the country will need to allocate ventilators and other scarce resources," the report reads.
The recommendation was made, according to the report, to balance "the need to prepare for a potential pandemic against the need to maintain adequate funding for current and ongoing health care expenses." The report also indicated that they would lack the staffing to even operate as many ventilators as would be required, "and purchasing additional ventilators beyond a threshold will not save additional lives, because there will not be a sufficient number of trained staff to operate them."
You don't live in Texas either but you're sure working your butt off to take the heat off of their Republicans.
In an effort to try and stop the thread from being manipulated by someone who obviously doesn't want to actually address the topic.....
Texas largely relies on natural gas for power. It wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.
Texas largely relies on natural gas — especially during times of high demand — to power the state. Experts say natural gas infrastructure, from pumping it out of the ground to the plants in city centers, was unprepared for the plunging temperatures brought by the winter storm.
Now, look... He bought those tickets and booked that reservation on a vacation week, you want to reimburse him fine, but dammit, if it were me or you our butt would have been on the plane.
Duh! of course. But we aren’t elected officials living in Texas so that’s just a stupid comparison.
I can understand wanting to grind the axe against big corporations. I don't always agree, but it probably ends up being more justified than not (the axe grinding).
But buried in this article was a point that this weather event was beyond the worst case calculations of the power companies. More regulation wouldn't have helped.
I can understand wanting to grind the axe against big corporations. I don't always agree, but it probably ends up being more justified than not (the axe grinding).
But buried in this article was a point that this weather event was beyond the worst case calculations of the power companies. More regulation wouldn't have helped.
Investment would have, upgrading would have, and quality leadership may have not prevented it under these same circumstances but would have done a much better job handling the crisis after it occurred. Abbott and Cruztello are a vaudeville act not even qualified to lead a parade of fools... yet we have Texas.Beto, as fake as he is at times, would have made a much better Senator or governor... I think he will be one of the two sooner rather than later.
Absolutely pathetic, Fox and Texas republicans took aim at green energy, over a failed Texas utility infrastructure. It is deregulated, they cut corners to save money, “don’t mess with Texas”
Fact check, wind power has been performing at a higher expectancy rate, in Texas, compared to fossil fuels over the past 2 weeks.
The Republican Party is becoming a factory of lies, and this is dangerous.
But buried in this article was a point that this weather event was beyond the worst case calculations of the power companies. More regulation wouldn't have helped.
Here's some charts that show the increased demand/capacity shortage along with a breakdown of the different types of energy.
Good lord the people of Texas just can’t catch a break right now.
But it must be said: they did vote for this after all. That’s a red state ran by very conservative politicians voted in by conservative Americans. They got exactly what they fought for: deregulated energy grid that fails when it matters most, and predatory corporations looking to make as much money off the people who are still alive.
But buried in this article was a point that this weather event was beyond the worst case calculations of the power companies. More regulation wouldn't have helped.
Nobody can say that as the absolute truth. Other states where hit just as hard as Texas without these massive power outages like Texas had. So that just doesn’t hold up.
Neckbeard elephant killer Junior is quite possibly dumber than his father. He certainly possesses a similar dislike of facts, and displays a similar lack of research prior to his inane online ramblings.
Kind of like the mayor of NYC moaning about needing more respirators when a few years before the Trump administration offered to sell them many?
You always have the answers.
Nice switch up there.... Expert level.
Still doesn't change the fact that Rick Perry, then Governor of Texas, was warned in like 2011 (not sure of the exact year) that this was a real possibility.
Did he do anything? NOPE.. Saying someone did this or that doesn't excuse what Texas officials have done to their own people... NOT EVEN A LITTLE, But like I said, Expert level Diversion...
But buried in this article was a point that this weather event was beyond the worst case calculations of the power companies. More regulation wouldn't have helped.
Nobody can say that as the absolute truth. Other states where hit just as hard as Texas without these massive power outages like Texas had. So that just doesn’t hold up.
Honestly I don't know the absolute truth of that. But being not / under winterized means that the catastrophe was a magnitude worse than if they had prepped for what was recommended.
This sort of reminds me of a situation in Europe - I saw a piece on the history channel or something, a village at the bottom of a mountain range had been wiped out by an avalanche at some point in time. No-one tried to live there for a few years, then a decade, then another couple decades went by and people decided to move back in and built up the village again. . . Anyone care to guess what happened a decade or so later?
Even a 1 in 100 year weather event can happen at ANY time. 1 in 50 year rain events happen much more frequently than one in 50 years in many places. Whether it's man made or not - climate change is making extreme weather more unpredictable and statistically more frequent. Not prepping for it for profit is short sighted and simply incompetent no matter which state you are in and which extreme weather event has a chance to impact your City/State.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
I guess now would be the time to show people that the small part of Texas that is NOT on the Texas power grid did well. Maybe that will help slow the excuses of some who claim that the way Texas handles its power grid is reasonable.
The parts of Texas not on its ERCOT power grid appear to have weathered the freeze with few outages
Peter Weber Thu, February 18, 2021, 2:01 AM
Texas is nearing the end of what Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called "a once-in-every-120-year cold front," but that doesn't entirely explain why more than a million households still had no electricity early Thursday, after three full days of below-freezing temperatures. Plenty of places in the world keep their power on in prolonged arctic weather, and so did parts of Texas.
Those edges of Texas, including El Paso, "are primarily in areas outside of those supported by ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the electric grid for 90 percent of the state and operates separately from federal oversight and regulation," KHOU 11 Houston reported Wednesday night.
After the 2011 winter freeze, El Paso Electric, on the Western Interconnect grid, spent heavily to "winterize our equipment and facilities so they could stand minus-10 degree weather for a sustained period of time," Eddie Gutierrez, an El Paso Electric spokesman, told KHOU. So this year, "we had about three thousand people that were out during this period, a thousand of them had outages that were less than five minutes."
On the other side of Texas, near the Louisiana border, the city of Beaumont also appears to have weather the storm without massive outages. Entergy, which powers Beaumont on the Eastern Interconnect grid, told KHOU it also winterized its infrastructure after the 2011 storm. Weatherizing power generation and extraction equipment is voluntary in Texas, though the state legislature will probably revisit that strategy when it dissects ERCOT this year.
Since every part of Texas not connected to their grid did the right thing and their customers saw minimal disruption, it's about time people step up and admit that Texas ignored the warnings and refused to take the necessary steps to avoid this.
I was actually referencing historical precedent, admittedly with some snark. Making it purple on a tablet felt like too much of a hassle in the moment.
But feel free to keep cheering for these PR campaigns of people that do very little actually for the people with their actual jobs as elected officials. It would be great if they spent time putting together good legislation instead of good sounding (and politically expedient) headlines.
I suppose they feel the need to start laying the groundwork for the next Democratic Presidential ticket with Biden to be 82 when this term is up.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
This is how stupid rumors start...One guy saying something like this... You have no idea if it's true, but I bet it's on Facebook or twitter soon. And some will simply believe it. Sounds a lot like something we'd see on Q
Once you have some evidence that AOC did this, get back to me. Historical precedent shows that Republican presidents might very well orchestrate break ins of the campaign headquarters of their political rivals too.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
This is how stupid rumors start...One guy saying something like this... You have no idea if it's true, but I bet it's on Facebook or twitter soon. And some will simply believe it. Sounds a lot like something we'd see on Q
And some will immediately try to "cancel" it because it doesn't support their political ideology.
It was a venting of frustration with all of politics. Quit trying to twist it into something else... please.
Yeah, in a Ted Cruz thread who abandoned his voters in a time of crisis you felt the need to vent your frustration towards AOC. You know, one who actually did something to help the people of Texas.
I'm sure that in your frustration you must have been raising you ire at all of the state legislatures punishing those who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
Awe, couldn’t tell minority groups how to protest in this thread? So you come in here to try and discredit good will with both sidesing with some made up scenario.
For someone who boasts about their intellect and mental faculties, this sure is a quite silly retort to a lady engaging in the Social Gospel for individuals that aren’t even her constituents.
This is a real bad look for him. Meh, he's another member of congress, along with pretty much every one of them that needs to be dismissed immediately.
Can we just expel everyone from congress now? I'm sick of all these ass backwards dumbasses who don't get anything done but waste the time and money of the American people.
I still think if you picked a whole bunch of people off the street they would be able to run the country better than the current members in congress. I hate these people.
This is a real bad look for him. Meh, he's another member of congress, along with pretty much every one of them that needs to be dismissed immediately.
Can we just expel everyone from congress now? I'm sick of all these ass backwards dumbasses who don't get anything done but waste the time and money of the American people.
Nov. 3 2020 was a clear and present message for anyone who thinks like that to SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!
Whoever the secret pentagon government that stops counts and counts votes, demands you do as in In Lock Stepp! with what you are told! and if anyone who continues with this old thing I've been hearing for 30 years, " vote everybody out" doesn't start to get the message of do as you're told, things could get really ugly.
The election of Trump in 2016, and the reaffirming of his election in 2020 are a sign that people who think like this, people who would vote for Trump, will be dealt with. -says the people in charge, I mean, does anyone have access to the news? What do we think they are doing?
This is a real bad look for him. Meh, he's another member of congress, along with pretty much every one of them that needs to be dismissed immediately.
Can we just expel everyone from congress now? I'm sick of all these ass backwards dumbasses who don't get anything done but waste the time and money of the American people.
I still think if you picked a whole bunch of people off the street they would be able to run the country better than the current members in congress. I hate these people.
Wow, this is extremely odd/weird: SOMEONE replied to your post with "Yeah. But he's a senator."
I replied to that person with "I thought senators were part of congress? Did I miss something?"
That was less than 10 minutes ago, yet the other person's post, and my reply, have been deleted. I find that odd.
I deleted my own post. I didn’t see your reply. I had misread his post. I thought he was calling him a congressman, then when I reread I realized he has calling out the entire congress.
Not that odd, really. But, you are always looking for something to get excited about.
Since you’re looking to talk about said congressman, how do you feel about him tucking and running while a congresswoman that doesn’t represent his constituents has raised over 3 million dollars?
I think the definition of knowing it all is an understanding of how things are and the ability to explain it to those around me. (waits to be corrected)
I think Cruz is a worthless legislator, and I think his involvement would only have made things worse for the crisis in Texas. So, complaining about him leaving the country seemed counterproductive to me. I wish he'd stay gone.
Someone else brought the democrats into the Cruz thread, so I made a snarky comment about all politicians (including Cruz.)
If I thought they were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, I'd praise Beto and AOC. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical. Too much media coverage, too well orchestrated. There have been too many years of good ideas/labels slathered over a multitude of shady dealings for me to trust politicians. The ones getting the most media attention are the ones I trust the least. Kind of like used car salespeople, the ones that won't leave me alone are the ones I'm least likely to buy from. It seems like every politician on the lot ends up being a lemon.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
This is how stupid rumors start...One guy saying something like this... You have no idea if it's true, but I bet it's on Facebook or twitter soon. And some will simply believe it. Sounds a lot like something we'd see on Q
And some will immediately try to "cancel" it because it doesn't support their political ideology.
It was a venting of frustration with all of politics. Quit trying to twist it into something else... please.
You know exactly where you can stick your cancel culture remarks...
This is simple, Show me where you are right, then I'll shut up...You are like Qanon.. Starting and spreading the dumbest rumors and conspiracy theories..
Stuff like that is how we got Trump...Without a doubt, the worst president this country has ever seen
Almost every Republican who voted to impeach Trump, both in the house and senate have received some form of punishment, including censure from their own party from the cult of trump. They wish to expel them from their own party. Then they have the gall to call out Democrats for "cancel culture".
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
Awe, couldn’t tell minority groups how to protest in this thread? So you come in here to try and discredit good will with both sidesing with some made up scenario.
For someone who boasts about their intellect and mental faculties, this sure is a quite silly retort to a lady engaging in the Social Gospel for individuals that aren’t even her constituents.
Get that weak stuff outta here, Bull.
I tried to let the mods deal with it, but they seem to be MIA, and I can't really blame them. I'd rather not read the vile mess that gets spewed in this forum, either, by people who can't defend their positions any other way.
Aren't you a piece of work? Bringing up old, non-relevant personal attacks that were mostly BS blown out of all proportion even back then. Are you proud of yourself?
At least my comments were related to the conversation taking place and weren't attacking anyone. I'm sorry if you feel threatened by anyone that doesn't agree with you and suck down the party line. That must be a god awful way to live your life.
I have a hard time understanding how people keep acting like battered wives when it comes to politicians as they keep falling for the grand dramatic/romantic gesture after decades of constant abuse and abandonment. Although, I suppose that could somewhat explain it.
If my comments were so weak, why didn't you address any of it? Instead you flung old mud that had nothing to do with what I wrote. Talk about weak.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
This is how stupid rumors start...One guy saying something like this... You have no idea if it's true, but I bet it's on Facebook or twitter soon. And some will simply believe it. Sounds a lot like something we'd see on Q
And some will immediately try to "cancel" it because it doesn't support their political ideology.
It was a venting of frustration with all of politics. Quit trying to twist it into something else... please.
You know exactly where you can stick your cancel culture remarks...
This is simple, Show me where you are right, then I'll shut up...You are like Qanon.. Starting and spreading the dumbest rumors and conspiracy theories..
Stuff like that is how we got Trump...Without a doubt, the worst president this country has ever seen
I hate the cancel culture remarks too, unfortunately, message boards make a lot of the cues available in normal conversations difficult. If we'd been face to face you could have seen my eyes practically roll out of my head.
I'd appreciate it if you left off the QAnon comparisons. They're serious, I'm just disgusted with politics and my dry, dark sense of humor in relation to it doesn't translate to text very well.
I tried to let the mods deal with it, but they seem to be MIA, and I can't really blame them. I'd rather not read the vile mess that gets spewed in this forum, either, by people who can't defend their positions any other way.
Yet here you are.
People defend their positions all the time. Some listen and some whine about it. You seem to be the latter of the two.
Quote:
At least my comments were related to the conversation taking place and weren't attacking anyone. I'm sorry if you feel threatened by anyone that doesn't agree with you and suck down the party line. That must be a god awful way to live your life.
Really? Questioning the motives of someone who did good for Texans is "related"? That isn't an attack? Nobody is buying that BS.
Quote:
I have a hard time understanding how people keep acting like battered wives when it comes to politicians as they keep falling for the grand dramatic/romantic gesture after decades of constant abuse and abandonment. Although, I suppose that could somewhat explain it.
Yet here you are presenting yourself as a battered wife. Bottom line is Texans received over three million dollars in help. All you can do is try and cast doubt on that with no evidence to support it. Then act like the battered wife.
So much for accountability. You represent the Trumpian way. Cast aspersions on those who do the right things so they sound as bad as the person who did the wrong thing.
I'd praise Beto and AOC. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical. Too much media coverage, too well orchestrated.
Always with the fake media spin. Not surprised. Yep ....keep spreading the big fat trump lie. Despicable bad AOC and Beto doing good work? Media is orchestrating their fake generosity. While trump supporters like Fled Cruz force us to eat snow and die while they travel to Cancun and continue to super spread a deadly virus. So typical. Pffft trump supporters are truly sickening.
Texas Rep. Gary Gates facing backlash after taking private jet to Florida amid outages
State Rep. Gary Gates is under fire from his constituents for leaving House District 28 on Wednesday as much of Fort Bend County struggled without water and power.
After losing power Tuesday, Gates left his home via his private jet Wednesday night and traveled to Orlando, Fla., sparking outrage among many who believe the freshman lawmaker should have remained in his district.
“It really would have been nice to have a state representative helping on the ground, working at a warming center, packing food, etc. rather than immediately (flying) off on a private plane when the going got tough,” said Brian Walz, one of Gates’ constituents. “My neighbors didn’t get to do that when her pipe burst.”
Gates acknowledged the frustration of his critics, but stated that the decision to leave Texas was based on the needs of his family. His pipes burst, he said, and 30 percent of his home was flooded, leaving his sick wife and special needs daughter at risk.
“My wife is still recovering from an illness she has been battling for two weeks, and the room of my adult daughter, who is mentally handicapped and still lives with us, flooded,” Gates said.
By Wednesday morning, Gates added, mold had set in. He had planned to stay with one of his daughters, but she, too, lost power. With no other options, Gates said, he and his family flew to Florida.
Gates’ explanation for leaving was conflicting, according to Stefan Modrich from the Fort Bend Star.
“I spoke to (Gates’) chief of staff today. Gates, owner of Gatesco Inc., a property manager of several apartment buildings in Houston, was on a business trip and meeting with a ‘major vendor’ in Orlando and is returning tomorrow,” Modrich wrote on Twitter.
When questioned about the inconsistent reports, Gates contended that the person Modrich spoke with was not his chief of staff. Gates acknowledged that he did meet with a vendor while in Florida, but it was only because he was already there.
“I told (the source) that I was going to take advantage to meet with one of my major vendors who’s home office is here,” Gates said. “I was able to visit with them and have dinner with their office personnel.”
Gates added that he has been in contact with his district despite being out of state.
“Since arriving in Florida, I have had functioning internet and reliable mobile coverage,” he said. “I have been able to monitor the power restoration process, correspond with constituents and direct the recovery efforts at our apartment complexes.
The chastisement of Gates is similar to that of Sen. Ted Cruz, who was seen boarding a flight for Cancun on Thursday.
On HoustonChronicle.com: Sen. Ted Cruz, back in Houston, calls controversial Cancún trip ‘a mistake’
His critics pointed out the similarities as well. “I guess Gates took Senator Cruz’s lead,” one Facebook user wrote.
Gates stated that he plans to return to the district Friday afternoon.
There seems to be a theme here. Republicans can't seem to grasp the concept that their families can actually go places without them. Unless of course they don't believe that a woman can fly to a location, check into a hotel, probably already done online, and care for their families without them.
I'd praise Beto and AOC. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical. Too much media coverage, too well orchestrated.
Always with the fake media spin. Not surprised. Yep ....keep spreading the big fat trump lie. Despicable bad AOC and Beto doing good work? Media is orchestrating their fake generosity. While trump supporters like Fled Cruz force us to eat snow and die while they travel to Cancun and continue to super spread a deadly virus. So typical. Pffft trump supporters are truly sickening.
he just whined about being compared to Qanon despite literally doing the same thing they do. its like he's completely oblivious to the fact that he's sounding about as crazy as the Qanon shaman right now.
the lack of self-awareness people display sometimes is simply frightening.
The party of trump doesn’t give a flying duck egg what their senators or congressmen do, as long as they support trump.
And this is what you get. Look at these guys. They are placing blame directly on their daughters and wives for leaving Texans cold and hungry and flying south. Pffft trump supporters.
I tried to let the mods deal with it, but they seem to be MIA, and I can't really blame them. I'd rather not read the vile mess that gets spewed in this forum, either, by people who can't defend their positions any other way.
Yet here you are.
People defend their positions all the time. Some listen and some whine about it. You seem to be the latter of the two.
Quote:
At least my comments were related to the conversation taking place and weren't attacking anyone. I'm sorry if you feel threatened by anyone that doesn't agree with you and suck down the party line. That must be a god awful way to live your life.
Really? Questioning the motives of someone who did good for Texans is "related"? That isn't an attack? Nobody is buying that BS.
Quote:
I have a hard time understanding how people keep acting like battered wives when it comes to politicians as they keep falling for the grand dramatic/romantic gesture after decades of constant abuse and abandonment. Although, I suppose that could somewhat explain it.
Yet here you are presenting yourself as a battered wife. Bottom line is Texans received over three million dollars in help. All you can do is try and cast doubt on that with no evidence to support it. Then act like the battered wife.
So much for accountability. You represent the Trumpian way. Cast aspersions on those who do the right things so they sound as bad as the person who did the wrong thing.
How am I acting like a battered wife? I'm not coming back to "you" saying I still love you despite your antics. I'm calling out "your" BS and leaving you.
"You" took my joking posts and acted like they were serious, and then started spewing hate. Good riddance. Hopefully I can keep my hiatus from this awful forum permanent this time.
"You" took my joking posts and acted like they were serious, and then started spewing hate. Good riddance. Hopefully I can keep my hiatus from this awful forum permanent this time.
Yeah, you were joking about questioning her intentions and motives. What hate did I spew? None. Another example of you sounding like a battered wife.
Let me explain something to you. Those people she helped? They don't care about her motives. All they care about is that someone was there to help them. Only people like yourself would try to make someone who did the right thing sound as bad as someone who did the wrong thing.
The fact I pointed that out isn't hate. But that's a label all too familiar for anyone who crosses some of the crazy things people post these days. I actually find it comical and sad at the very same time. The deep desire to cast doubt on people who actually help in a time of need. And then the very person who does it makes the wild claim it's others who spread hate? Hilarious.
Come back or stay gone. The choice is yours. I doubt anyone actually gives a damn one way or the other. But stop acting like the victim when you post unfounded conspiracies about someone's motives for helping those in need. Many of us don't care for that kind of hate.
Gotta love it. He actually said he was joking. That’s the trumpian way. Make up crap about others. Then when they are called out they say GMAB I was joking. Pffft trump supporters are just dense.
Almost every Republican who voted to impeach Trump, both in the house and senate have received some form of punishment, including censure from their own party from the cult of trump. They wish to expel them from their own party. Then they have the gall to call out Democrats for "cancel culture".
Gotta love it. He actually said he was joking. That’s the trumpian way. Make up crap about others. Then when they are called out they say GMAB I was joking. Pffft trump supporters are just dense.
Ted Cruz is a known commodity. For me, AOC is as well (I posted one of the "I'm not a fan of most of what she says, but..." posts further up). She gets mad props from me on this one.
So let’s recap, Texas energy was ill equipped to deal with climate extremes.
Ahem, climate extremes will become the norm, get your ish together. We can now mess with Texas, you don’t get another bailout, you have have been properly warned.
Interesting that being one of the faces of the attempted coup was just a speed bump in terms of his approval rating. Honestly, the Cancun thing was probably a bigger hit to his approval rating, but he'll probably recover from this, too.
Interesting that being one of the faces of the attempted coup was just a speed bump in terms of his approval rating. Honestly, the Cancun thing was probably a bigger hit to his approval rating, but he'll probably recover from this, too.
Karma has made Cruz fat and ugly so he has that to live with. And nowTexas is lifting the mask requirement next week. So he’ll be losing even more of his deplorable voter base to covid. Karma going to get em all.
I don't like most of her policies but have to give mad props for this... What she and Beto have done in the last week should not be downplayed.
At least not until we find out that a large portion of the money raised is sitting in off shore bank accounts and the majority of the supplies that were supposed to help are still sitting in a warehouse somewhere years later.
I'll admit their PR teams are putting in work.
Sorry, had to vent my disgust with politicians in general somewhere.
This is how stupid rumors start...One guy saying something like this... You have no idea if it's true, but I bet it's on Facebook or twitter soon. And some will simply believe it. Sounds a lot like something we'd see on Q
And some will immediately try to "cancel" it because it doesn't support their political ideology.
It was a venting of frustration with all of politics. Quit trying to twist it into something else... please.
You know exactly where you can stick your cancel culture remarks...
This is simple, Show me where you are right, then I'll shut up...You are like Qanon.. Starting and spreading the dumbest rumors and conspiracy theories..
Stuff like that is how we got Trump...Without a doubt, the worst president this country has ever seen
I hate the cancel culture remarks too, unfortunately, message boards make a lot of the cues available in normal conversations difficult. If we'd been face to face you could have seen my eyes practically roll out of my head.
I'd appreciate it if you left off the QAnon comparisons. They're serious, I'm just disgusted with politics and my dry, dark sense of humor in relation to it doesn't translate to text very well.
You do understand that it's just another turned phrase to set the Trumpian crowd on fire.
I mean, come one, Cancel Culture is big on the Right.. Look at this,, Any republican that voted to convict Trump got censured by their state parties. That's Cancel Culture..
If you are going to use that phrase, at least have the dignity to use it on the right also
Today is March 4th, 1, am. We must ask ourselves, to Beware!
How are the Democratic Left going to attack the free people of the US. today, and then blame the Free (thinking), Republicans for it, and then spend an eternity trying to punish the Republicans for events (probably, allegedly, orchestrated by the democratic left, Which nobody even knows what the heck events we're talking about yet, because all we know so far,
Is the awful, terrible, democratic left, said beware past day, and then pulled this bull, and now they are saying beware March 4th, so they are probably going to pull more Bull!
(In related opinion, everyone, Look Out! Nancy Pelosi- might be taking a break from lurking in the shadows, stirring her cauldron, to step out of probably unspeakable things
to once again attack freedom, and free loving people in the US.
So Watch out, ( I think there are 40,000 people, in the elite levels, They control the media, They may tell you anything.
They told us for 40 DAYS, to watch out because they might be a victim on March 4th?, nobody give a crud about March 4th, except for how they, the supposed victims, can play the victim again, of what I think transpires from their own doings, so that afterwards, they can blame the free thinking Americans, and Republicans, Again! For the purpose to Attack! and Take Freedoms from the US people.
(or at least, Pelosi and Shumur are probably going to take a break from stirring her cauldron, and sitting upright in his coffin, to find some New way to blame Repbulicans, and free thinking Trump voters;
For WHO KNOWS, what the crud they are going to do, but it is March 4th,
Those dang (irt) Democrats have been warning us, since before January 1st.
I hope, nothing happens, but if anything happens, like past days, We must keep our eyes open for deception.
Just so we're clear (and context is everything), you're posting about the liberal elite vs the Free-thinking Republicans in a thread where Ted Cruz left TX in the middle of a crisis to tan his fat-#$% in Cancun...?
THROW’s posts are like that AI that wrote a Hallmark Christmas movie by having the plots of many other Hallmark Christmas movies plugged into it. It then spit out a story of its own. One that seems like a very disjointed version of that which was fed into it.
I imagine THROW reading and watching all the craziest stuff on OANN, Newsmaxx, and Tucker Carlson then taking a crack at deciphering it into his own fever dream gibberish.
He uses the same words but they just don’t seem to line up with portraying cognizant thoughts or concepts. But his source material is so lacking in facts and reality we shouldn’t expect more.
Today is March 4th, 1, am. We must ask ourselves, to Beware!
How are the Democratic Left going to attack the free people of the US. today, and then blame the Free (thinking), Republicans for it, and then spend an eternity trying to punish the Republicans for events (probably, allegedly, orchestrated by the democratic left, Which nobody even knows what the heck events we're talking about yet, because all we know so far,
Is the awful, terrible, democratic left, said beware past day, and then pulled this bull, and now they are saying beware March 4th, so they are probably going to pull more Bull!
(In related opinion, everyone, Look Out! Nancy Pelosi- might be taking a break from lurking in the shadows, stirring her cauldron, to step out of probably unspeakable things
to once again attack freedom, and free loving people in the US.
So Watch out, ( I think there are 40,000 people, in the elite levels, They control the media, They may tell you anything.
They told us for 40 DAYS, to watch out because they might be a victim on March 4th?, nobody give a crud about March 4th, except for how they, the supposed victims, can play the victim again, of what I think transpires from their own doings, so that afterwards, they can blame the free thinking Americans, and Republicans, Again! For the purpose to Attack! and Take Freedoms from the US people.
(or at least, Pelosi and Shumur are probably going to take a break from stirring her cauldron, and sitting upright in his coffin, to find some New way to blame Repbulicans, and free thinking Trump voters;
For WHO KNOWS, what the crud they are going to do, but it is March 4th,
Those dang (irt) Democrats have been warning us, since before January 1st.
I hope, nothing happens, but if anything happens, like past days, We must keep our eyes open for deception.
Be on the lookout for Lies.
God hates liars, Proverbs says so.
You are aware that this whole March 4th thing was a Qanon thing that came up after the trump loss right? I mean, it's based on nothing. But hey, when did that ever stop QAnon folks from spouting off the nonsense like this.
It's not an excuse, there is literally nothing he can do to help anybody. He's not the governor, he's not a state legislator, he's not a mayor, he's not on an energy or utility commission.. he's a federal senator of a senate that isn't even in session.
Maybe you think there is some nobility in staying to suffer with everybody else...
Disagree. It's an act of cowardice and elitism. I like Ted cruz or well I did, but he is a hypocrite. Bemoaning on his own website the rich and coastal elites.
Cruz on Fox News: The Democrats’ Today Are the Party of the Rich & Coastal Elites
Then scurrying off to freaking CABO. Not going to Florida and disguising his visit as political...MEXICO. It's hypocrital, it's cowardly for anyone who views them self as a leader of men. It's a flat out bitch move.
While true, not a lot he can do, he is an elected representative literally taking a vacation while the people who elected him are suffering. No leader in the history of the world prior to democratic elections would ever retained power after an act of cowardice like this.
I’ve long said, the greatest benefit of Donald Trump would be, he gave tUSA a mirror. Texas is flexing in front that of that same mirror.
If Texas wants to get rid of masks, that’s fine. Just stay out of every neighboring state, your irresponsibility should not be allowed to cross borders.
If Texas wants to get rid of masks, that’s fine. Just stay out of every neighboring state, your irresponsibility should not be allowed to cross borders.
Glad it morphed into an infrastructure topic, kinda.
That being said, I want to remind the board that people are a robot away from losing their job.
It’s inevitable. AI is simply more efficient. Obviously there will be certain jobs/industries that AI won’t be able to replace, but I really wish a national/international dialogue was started amongst world leaders on this.
I mean we got billion dollar factories getting built, but maybe 2500 permanent jobs once it’s up and running. And that’s a hard ‘maybe’.
Tech is developing at warp speed, so while we keep bickering over nonsense, before we know it we’ll be knee deep in a labor crisis.
We’re already at the cusp of that due to lack of talent/skills in intermediate/high level positions, as well as falling birth rates and people living much longer.
I agree. Society and the work force is changing rapidly. Another 400k applied for unemployment comp. last mo Food lines are growing. Homelessness is skyrocketing. The call for a 1 payer healthcare is nearly required right now. Especially during this pandemic. A minimum wage is never sufficient and raising that is impossible in the current political realm. Our infrastructure is literally crumbling before our eyes. It requires a socialistic approach to fix healthcare, earnings, and infrastructure for US. “We the people”
And you are wrong Mr Peen socialism is not communism, not even close. Communism is what you saw on Jan 6th, They attacked our democracy. That’s what a communist does.
I don't believe passing a living wage is impossible in this political climate. If one just looks at the Covid relief bill there wasn't a single Republican vote for it yet it passed anyway.
I think the problem was trying to tie a living wage into a Covid bill was the issue. The living wage issue was a problem long before Covid. I just don't think you could make a direct connection between the two. Did it make the minimum wage more difficult? Yes it certainly did. But as I stated, it had been an issue raised repeatedly for years before Covid.
We will certainly find out. Unlike what some claim nobody "gave up" on a living wage. It will be brought up again soon.
