Do Texans Deserve Ted Cruz? The deep freeze.

Politics and Social Issues
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Texas Senator Ted Cruz is once again showing his mettle.

Not only is he as two faced a slime ball as can be. Consider he’s the dude who crawled up the Big T’s bung hole even after the Big T campaigns and tells our nation his (Cruz’s) daddy participated in assassinating President Kennedy’s, but I guess in Texas that thought went over pretty good - so hey, who cares, if it wasn’t a political liability. Nothing lost.

 

And now when the going get’s tough in his power long star state of anti-science anti-democracy, runs away like the baby boy he is.

Nobody is sure where Ted Cruz is, but many are speculating he flew to Cancun after Texas' deadly winter storm Sinéad Baker 28 minutes ago

www_businessinsider_com/ted-cruz-cancun-texas-2021-2


 

‘My family freezing, my senator is in Cancun’: Twitter explodes as Ted Cruz accused of traveling out of storm-hit Texas 18 Feb, 2021 09:16

https://www.rt.com/usa/515908-ted-cruz-anger-travel-storm/


 

 

Texas blackouts explained: Arctic weather shut down power plants as demand for heat surged, and the state's grid is on its own Benji Jones

Millions of Texans were without heat and power on Wednesday as arctic weather pummeled the state.
The cold weather caused energy sources to go offline just as demand for electricity went up.
Climate change could make events like these more frequent, experts say.

www_businessinsider_com/texas-blackouts-millions-lost-power-in-storm-went-wrong-2021-2


 

Yes sirre, When a political power is powered by delusions, what the heck else can you possibly expect?

 

These horrendous monstrosities are only going to keep getting worse. That's what you get when collective delusional thinking is all the rage.

www_npr_org/sections/13.7/2013/12/15/251437395/global-warming-explained-in-about-a-minute

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Repugs lie, cheat, and steal and then, when the going gets tough, they run to a warmer climate.

BTW, where did you read that Ted Cruz’s daddy was involved in the assassination of Kennedy?

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Demonstration of the sense of duty our Trumpster Republicans exemplify.

Politicians Play The Blame Game As Texans Huddle In The Dark | The 11th Hour | MSNBC | February 17, 2021

Texas officials ignored federal recommendations to winterize the state’s power grid and now the state’s governor is facing criticism for blaming the state’s winter power failure on green energy. Peter Baker joins to discuss. Aired on 02/18/2021.


ME FIRST thinking all the way.

But, nothing to see here, just another day in our new Amerika, move along and get used to the new Republican Party normal. Putin must be smiling.

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https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-ted-cruz-father-222730

 

Trump accuses Cruz’s father of helping JFK’s assassin

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

05/03/2016 07:36 AM EDT
Donald Trump on Tuesday alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.

A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was “another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage.”

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during a phone interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

Trump’s tangent followed his rebuke of Rafael Cruz using the pulpit to court evangelicals for his son. …

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Hey whatever happened to the legal problems and that lawsuit that was supposed to be happening against the National Enquirer?

 

www_businessinsider_com/national-enquirer-vs-jeff-bezos-legal-experts-explain-risks-consequences-2019-2

The National Enquirer vs. Jeff Bezos: Legal experts break down what’s at stake in battle between the world’s wealthiest man and a supermarket tabloid
Sarah Gray. Feb 10, 2019 …

Federal prosecutors are reviewing claims made by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in a post published on Medium last week that accused the National Enquirer and its publisher, American Media Inc., (AMI) of “extortion and blackmail,” sources told The New York Times.

Bezos published several emails from the National Enquirer’s chief content officer Dylan Howard and from Jon Fine, an attorney representing AMI — one of which lists compromising photographs of Bezos that the supermarket tabloid says it has. Another message lists the terms the company is demanding in order to keep the material out of the public sphere.

There are outstanding legal questions about the Bezos/AMI ordeal, including whether or not AMI has committed a crime by allegedly holding compromising information about Bezos as leverage to get what it wants from him.

Legal experts say it’s complicated. …

 


Legal experts say it’s complicated. That’s in the same category as “those who make the most points win the ballgame,”

That’ll be $50 for that minute of legal advice, thank you very much.

Yeah, legal experts made sure it would be. . :slight_smile:

National Enquirer Chief David Pecker Loses Top Job in Company Merger As the longtime media executive moves to an adviser role, American Media, the parent of The National Enquirer, has been renamed A360Media as part of a planned merger with a logistics company.

www_nytimes_com/2020/08/21/business/media/david-pecker-ami-ceo.html

David J. Pecker, the tabloid media titan who drew the scrutiny of federal investigators for his alleged role in Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, is out as the leader of the parent company of The National Enquirer, Us Weekly and other publications, according to a company announcement on Friday. …

 

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Does Ted Cruz possess a Moral Compass?

1400×933 243 KB

What’s that?, he asks.

<blockquote>Ted Cruz Abandons Millions of Freezing Texans and His Poodle, Snowflake

By Michael Hardy, Intelligencer

After jaunting off to Cancún with his family Wednesday night, Senator Ted Cruz explained that he was merely escorting his teenage girls on a vacation trip with their friends. In an apparent bid for sympathy, he noted that, like millions of other Texans, “our family lost heat and water.” Cynics immediately cast doubt on this claim, so this afternoon I decided to check out the senator’s power situation for myself. Supplied with Cruz’s address by a knowledgeable friend, I drove the fifteen minutes from my Houston apartment to the uber-rich River Oaks neighborhood where Cruz lives.

From the street, Cruz’s white, Colonial Revival-style mansion looked dark and uninhabited. A neighbor informed me that the block had indeed lost power before finally getting it back late Wednesday night. A glance at the lighted lanterns flanking the doorways of other homes on the block confirmed this. The senator’s story appeared to check out. But then I heard barking and noticed a small, white dog looking out the bottom right pane of glass in the senator’s front door. Had Cruz left his dog behind?  ....   https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/ted-cruz-flees-texas-for-cancun-ditches-family-poodle.html</blockquote>
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This is my facebook post about him. Kinda proud of it.

This is our world. The people, like me, who can easily cross borders, without question, be welcomed even, don't see any problem with making it difficult for others to do the same. People, not like me, who can put their whole family on a plane at a moments notice because their housing situation is difficult at the moment, don't see a problem with putting up barriers to better housing options for all. This isn't just some out of touch rich guy, he has all the data, all the experts at his disposal. It's literally his job.
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What surprises me is that Trump attacked Cruz who, i my memory, is one of his staunchest supporter.

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Question: Did Cuomo report the Nursing Home deaths as part of the overall death toll or where they never reported at all?

If they were reported then this parsing is totally unwarranted because it does not in any way alter the total number of deaths reported. No one reports the death toll of people dying from old age in nursing homes as compared to dying from old age at home.

I believe that if Cuomo had known this would be an issue he would have reported it. There is no assignment of blame or neglect. People go to nursing homes to die, not to get younger.

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I’m really glad Cruz got back to Texas and got his coveralls and work gear on. Just how much did all his hard work out there on the power grid contribute to getting the power back on sooner?

Wait now, you don’t mean that his presence in Texas didn’t make any difference, do you? If he couldn’t help get the power back on, then why all the fuss?

Oh yes, I see, just another opportunity for a stupid attack on one of your enemies. Same old Dems.

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I’ve personally experienced having people bring food to my house, going to free spaghetti dinners, and getting buckets and mops handed out to me from my government and private groups or individuals because I was in the middle of a disaster. None of that happens without the coordination by people who have that power. Beto and AOC were doing their job, Ted was not.

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@ibelieveinlogic. Wait now, you don’t mean that his presence in Texas didn’t make any difference, do you?
Guess Logic doesn't know much about how government works,

or how logistics require planning and execution, and a chain of command.

Or government or Emergency Services.

 

 

Perhaps he’s simply a rhetorical Turing Machine, following a most simplistic logic that has no room for anymore input. So it can only spit out the same class of answers. Useless ones.

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A leader. Someone who displays leadership in a time of crisis.

Me First. Speaks for itself.

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Back to Texas, so have you heard the El Paso story?

Apparently they are far enough from the Texas heartland that they are left to fend for themselves.

 

El Paso Heeded the Warnings and Avoided a Winter Catastrophe

The West Texas city was spared the worst effects of this week’s storms, thanks to its preparations in the wake of a devastating 2011 deep freeze.

BY SIERRA JUAREZ, FEBRUARY 19, 2021

When the winter storms that paralyzed most of Texas first blew through El Paso on February 14, only about 3,000 people in the city had a power outage in their homes, and more than 2,000 of those saw their power restored within just five minutes. No homes in this city of 682,000 residents spent days without power or heat—an experience common to millions throughout the rest of the state. Although this winter storm didn’t hit El Paso as severely as it did other parts of the state, the conditions were similar to those during a February 2011 storm that devastated the city. It’s thanks to the preparations that El Paso made in response to that disaster, as well as its operating on a different electric grid than the majority of Texas, that the city had a starkly different experience during the last awful week for the state.

Because of the vast distance that separates El Paso from Texas’s other major population centers, and because its customer base includes parts of southern New Mexico, the power supply of the city’s public utility isn’t linked to the grid overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages about 90 percent of the state’s electric load. Instead, it’s connected to the Western Interconnection grid, which spans fourteen states in the West, along with parts of Canada and Mexico. As a consequence, when the winter freeze hit Texas, El Paso Electric had a sizable safety net. In addition to its local plants, it drew on Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona to meet the surge in customer demand as people cranked up their thermostats.

Meanwhile, ERCOT’s grid purposefully remains within the state’s boundaries in order to avoid federal energy regulations. …

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If anyone is curious about the details.

 

www_statesman._om/story/news/2021/02/19/ercot-texas-power-grid-outage-board-bill-magness-greg-abbott-public-utility-commision-energy/4515522001/

 

spectrumlocalnews_com/tx/san-antonio/news/2021/02/16/state-agency-s-failure-may-cause-electricity-rates-to-rise

 

www_newsweek.com/texas-power-grid-ercot-outage-storm-bill-magness-1570466

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doesn’t know much about how government works,

or how logistics require planning and execution, and a chain of command.

Or government or Emergency Services.


Power in Texas is operated by a private company. Cruz is US Senator. The Federal government has no responsibility or authority to do anything related to the operation of the Texas power grid. At the local level Cruz has no more say about the Texas grid than any other private citizen. Yes, the authorities would probably take his call more readily than the average Joe, but that’s about it.

The fuss is the same old political BS. At least Biden didn’t make the Bush flyover mistake, but I don’t think he got any Texas snow on his shoes, now did he?

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Power in Texas is operated by a private company. Cruz is US Senator. The Federal government has no responsibility or authority to do anything related to the operation of the Texas power grid. At the local level Cruz has no more say about the Texas grid than any other private citizen. Yes, the authorities would probably take his call more readily than the average Joe, but that’s about it.
Yes, it is a privately held for-profit monopoly. That is why they are charging thousands of dollars per week for electricity use while energy is scarce.

Something is very wrong here!

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@ibelieveinlogic. The Federal government has no responsibility or authority to do anything related to the operation of the Texas power grid. At the local level Cruz has no more say about the Texas grid than any other private citizen. Yes, the authorities would probably take his call more readily than the average Joe, but that’s about it.
What do I know.

 

ROLL CALL - THE SOURCE FOR NEWS ON CAPITOL HILL SINCE 1955

HEARD ON THE HILL
Ted Cruz ignored ‘federal quarterback’ role when he zipped off to Cancun
What can a senator really do during a weather crisis? A lot, say former aides

By Jim Saksa
Posted February 18, 2021

…

But there are certain things you give up for a life in politics and all the power that comes with it, like anonymity and the ability to jet off without anyone noticing. Photos of a Cancun-bound Cruz spread online, and soon the Republican was caught in a different kind of storm.

No one denies the optics are bad for Cruz. It looks a little cold-hearted, at best, to work on your tan while your constituents are literally freezing to death. Still, what’s a member of Congress — a lawmaker — supposed to do about an unfolding natural disaster?

Some conservatives came to Cruz’s defense. On Twitter, Erick Erickson wrote: “The fact that people think Ted Cruz, a United States Senator, can do anything about a state power grid, even his own, is rather demonstrative of the ignorance of so many people who cover politics. They’d rather performative drama than substance.” …

 

Beyond not being a disease vector, members of Congress can find other ways to keep busy — by doing what they do all the time, serving constituents.

 

…

“Eighty percent — maybe even more — of the staff in any given office in the Senate or the House do constituent services,” said Sawyer Hackett, a former communications staffer for Rep. David Price of North Carolina. “In a storm like this people call a congressional office to figure out how to get their power back on, their road plowed, their kids’ school reopened.”

Hackett described how hurricanes hitting North Carolina were all-hands-on-deck situations for Price’s office — it didn’t matter what your title was, you were working the phones to help residents get answers. At the center of it was Price, leading the office.

When Tennessee faced some floods about a decade ago, Emily Phelps was a press secretary for then-Rep. Bart Gordon. The entire office was put to work coordinating with the federal agencies on the ground — FEMA, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Agriculture.

 

… A Senate staffer’s call to the Department of Housing and Urban Development about some emergency shelters can sometimes go unanswered; a senator’s call never does. “He gets the secretary,” said Hackett, who also once worked for HUD. …


 

But I guess one can’t do jack poop when one simply doesn’t care enough to give a fart.

Nothing wrong with that, may be wonderful for your funny buddy at the bar, but not a Senator who’s sword an OATH OF OFFICE to be responsive to the citizens of his/her proud state.

 

Substance matters more than facade.

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@ibelieveinlogic. Power in Texas is operated by a private company
And that's a huge part of the trouble. Profits means everything, customers are an inconvenience, maintenance of the system is treated with contempt.
How Texas’ Drive for Energy Independence Set It Up for Disaster Texas has refused to join interstate electrical grids and railed against energy regulation. Now it’s having to answer to millions of residents who were left without power in last week’s snowstorm.

By Clifford Krauss, Manny Fernandez, Ivan Penn and Rick Rojas
Feb. 21, 2021
HOUSTON —

www_nytimes_com/2021/02/21/us/texas-electricity-ercot-blackouts_html

 

The crisis could be traced to that other defining Texas trait: independence, both from big government and from the rest of the country. The dominance of the energy industry and the “Republic of Texas” ethos became a devastating liability when energy stopped flowing to millions of Texans who shivered and struggled through a snowstorm that paralyzed much of the state.

Part of the responsibility for the near-collapse of the state’s electrical grid can be traced to the decision in 1999 to embark on the nation’s most extensive experiment in electrical deregulation, handing control of the state’s entire electricity delivery system to a market-based patchwork of private generators, transmission companies and energy retailers. …

“Deregulation was something akin to abolishing the speed limit on an interstate highway,” said Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston. “That opens up shortcuts that cause disasters.”

… California, one of the early deregulators in the 1990s, scaled back its initial foray after market manipulation led to skyrocketing prices and rolling blackouts. …

… Consumers themselves got a direct shock last week when customers who had chosen variable-rate electricity contracts found themselves with power bills of $5,000 or more. …

Into a snowstorm with no reserves
One example of how Texas has gone it alone is its refusal to enforce a “reserve margin” of extra power available above expected demand, unlike all other power systems around North America. …

 

Earlier warnings of trouble
The outages and the cold weather touched off an avalanche of failures, but there had been warnings long before last week’s storm. …


 

www_statesman_com/story/news/2021/02/19/ercot-texas-power-grid-outage-board-bill-magness-greg-abbott-public-utility-commision-energy/4515522001/