The WaPo gives Greg Abbot a shiny participation trophy
Although Abbott said in November that he “can guarantee the lights will stay on” in the state the next time severe winter weather rolled through, the governor cautioned Tuesday that he could not promise that “load shed” events would not unfold this week. A load shed occurs when electricity demand above available supply results in rolling blackouts to keep the state power grid from collapsing. Load-shedding happened on a large scale in the state last year.
Buried several paragraphs later
While this week’s storm is not expected to be a repeat of the deadly freeze of 2021, the warnings are bringing back memories of what the state went through last February when freezing weather crippled Texas. At least 246 people died in what was one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history, according to a Dec. 31 report from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Nearly two-thirds of the deaths attributed to the storm were due to hypothermia, data shows.
Abbott — who initially blamed wind turbines that had frozen in the extreme cold for the power grid’s failure before acknowledging that they played no role — called for ERCOT to be overhauled after the storm.
And no, I’m not ghoulishly hoping for a repeat of last year’s horror (besides, I’m in the path, though, knock on wood, it won’t get as cold as last year), but goddamn, Abbot pretty much paid no political price for last year’s catastrophe.
He even got away with the bullshit snide remarks about renewable energy.
Sure, he was fact-checked, but then it all disappeared into the void.
Same with Ted Cruz, who attempted to abandon his constituents for fun in the Cancun sun (while leaving his dog in an unheated house and ultimately blaming his wife and kids when finally confronted).
Yet, just this week, he was a go-to source for bigoted remarks about Biden’s pending SCOUTS nominee.
Contrast this with the relentless criticism of the Biden administration, which is blamed for, let’s see, the ongoing pandemic, inflation (umm), the supply-chain crisis that was certainly going to mean lumps of coal in our Christmas stockings (and with Biden in thrall to the left, as if the left even exists here, probably not even that, because, you know, coal)…
Which, in the end, didn’t happen anyway.
Ending the Afghanistan war was a weeks long feeding frenzy.
Did anyone think it wouldn’t end like that?
Oh, and funny how it’s been dropped, along with the border crisis, though I’m sure either/both will return to prominence if/when it becomes a convenient cudgel for the GOP…and which will be dutifully reported by not just the Fox Noise propagandists…
Have I forgotten anything?
Well…there’s the drip, drip, drip revelations that the previous administration–remember them?–seriously attempted an actual coup.
And the ever more overt threats by TFG’s rabid minions.
How rabid? This rabid.
But watch–if Texas isn’t a basket case after this latest demonstration of the impact of climate change, watch for the paeans to Abbot, and the continued, weird, obsequious missives about Ron DeSantis and any/all of the other GOP daddy heroes that for whatever reason seem to excite the idiot elite media, even as they declare the elite media enemies of the people.
You know, I’m beginning to think the librul media might not be…all that librul.
Instead of commenting on Biden’s Supreme Court choice, we’d all be better off if Cruz spent this cold wave in Cancun