The General
Footballguy
I find this hard to believe. Regular people seem to be finding ways to help out.
At the very least someone whose job is dependent on having your neighbors pick you this seems unusual.
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The situation in Texas (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter timschochet
- Start date
At the very least someone whose job is dependent on having your neighbors pick you this seems unusual.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
This is basically what I was thinking too. Aside from "it just looks bad" (which is irrational), there's no particular reason for a senator to stick around.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Right, I’m only saying that there’s not much he necessarily could or should be doing in his role as a Senator. He could help in the same ways a lot of people can help, and it would reflect positively if he had chosen to do so.
zoonation
Footballguy
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squistion
Footballguy
Exactly.
From the Twitters:
You would think that the representative of those without heat and power during a winter storm would be experiencing sleepless nights organizing logistical support for those suffering. Days would be dedicated to delivering blankets and wood. Instead, Ted Cruz is flying to Cancun.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
zoonation
Footballguy
There's also a COVID epidemic, which is subsiding, why not wait until the Texas positivity rate drops below 5%. It's currently 11.1%, one of the highest in the country. Also, Mexico is in the middle of a huge second wave. And Cruz went anyway knowing he would be noticed.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Yeah, I don't care about that either. Cruz going on vacation doesn't magically infect his constituents with covid.
Look, Cruz should be expelled from the senate under the terms of the 14th amendment. I'm not a fan. But I'd rather stick to stuff that actually matters -- like the whole insurrection thing -- not trivial Twitter stuff.
Courtjester
The Town Drunk
Well, they have to blame someone now that Trump isn't here for this. Just saying,...
The General
Footballguy
A US Senator helping in this way means a lot more than Joe Citizen.
Ted can go to Mexico nothing is stopping him it’s a move that basically tells people he knows he’s good.
His tweets about CA energy problems and speeches about due process, voter fraud and a distrust of the democratic process help are his important work.
squistion
Footballguy
On the lighter side, from Trevor Noah of The Daily Show 
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1362418863002935301
HEARTBREAKING: One Texas resident had to travel over 1700 miles to find heat, water, and electricity.
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1362418863002935301
HEARTBREAKING: One Texas resident had to travel over 1700 miles to find heat, water, and electricity.
The General
Footballguy
popeye
Footballguy
Apple Jack
Footballguy
The General
Footballguy
That large portions of the state has zero power for days seems like a colossal #### up to me. I know **** all about Texas power grid, but yeah something seems amiss.
This is an extraordinary weather event. If it turns out really bad decisions being made on how to secure the power grid were being made someone will be held responsible or judged by these decisions. This should happen, no?
To this Ted Cruz stuff, yeah doesn’t run the state. Him bailing to go to a Mexico resort is ballsy I’ll give him that.
timschochet
Footballguy
Getting back to the point of this thread- This is the part I’m trying to figure out: is there a political question to discuss here? What I mean is: is the situation Texas is facing a result of conservative politics? Or a result of liberal politics? Or would it have made very little difference no matter what kind of politics the state and local government there chose to practice?
dawgtrails
Footballguy
Yea, i think Cruz is a turd, but he can make phone calls and whatever else he needs to do from Mexico
dawgtrails
Footballguy
It is a result of being unprepared for a historic weather event that is partially foreseeable. It has almost nothing to do with liberal politics (renewable energy) or conservative politics (deregulation)
zoonation
Footballguy
Cruz can’t turn the power back on. But he is an elected representative of the state. That means service. There are any number of ways he could be assisting and even helping to lead the disaster response.
The fact he went on vacation while his constituents are suffering is reprehensible and so on brand for this guy.
The fact he went on vacation while his constituents are suffering is reprehensible and so on brand for this guy.
timschochet
Footballguy
And note I’m not talking about incompetence or corruption or hypocrisy or lying, all of which, when they occur, are a different matter entirely and tell us nothing about political ideas. I’m referring to the philosophies associated with conservatism and liberalism, and whether one of these would have been more effective than the other in terms of the storm.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
I don't think it's particularly related to "conservative" or "liberal", just as I didn't think the massive CT power outages in 2020 were related to conservative or liberal. More accurately, it's a basic failure of government to ensure that certain entities are able to fulfill their stated purpose and hold them accountable.
timschochet
Footballguy
Thank you. This was my suspicion reading the attacks from both sides, but it’s rather unclear.
joffer
Footballguy
HellToupee
Footballguy
As a nation we have a fragile power grid that we don’t want to acknowledge
timschochet
Footballguy
Could that be due, at least in part, to conservative ideology regarding deregulation?
Sammy3469
Footballguy
I mean the parts of the state (El Paso and much of the East) not part of ERCOT seem to be fine, so it's pretty clearly policy decisions made by both the politicians in government and the ERCOT administrators. They had ample warning in 2011 and chose not to spend the resources to upgrade their grid.
joffer
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
And this is due to both political parties unable to reach an agreement on infrastructure, even though both parties have been talking about it for at least a decade?
Grace Under Pressure
Footballguy
It does appear to be more about competence, greed and special interests than it does about conservative or liberal. However I would add I don't know enough about Texas politics and relationships with the energy industry to say that any ideology component is completely off the table.
timschochet
Footballguy
It’s incredibly frustrating. Even during the Obama years, even during the Trump years, as divided as Americans are, there’s never been any large disagreement on infrastructure. Liberals are for it. Conservatives are for it. Nobody speaks against it. And yet it hasn’t been done. There hasn’t even been a significant bill proposed. Why not?
Sammy3469
Footballguy
I would just say I don't know if it is so much greed, but the belief of not wanting to increase direct costs on the citizens.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
I don't think so. Power companies here in CT are pretty heavily regulated, yet last year large swaths of the state lost power for a week. You didn't hear about it as much because it wasn't 27 degrees outside.
Power companies don't want to pay to create redundancies. Government doesn't want to force them to. Government doesn't want to pay to create redundancies. Consumers don't want to see their rates increase. Now what?
Phil Elliott
Footballguy
I don't like seeing the politicizing of this problem From either side. I received a text from a relative Sunday afternoon indicating ERCOT had informed the local energy utilities to start the rolling blackouts around 4:00 pm. Nothing happened until midnight. But the very first reports from the news media only mentioned the freezing wind turbines in west Texas. That may be where the initial focus on the turbine failures came from. But within the next 24 hours more information was being communicated that production from all energy sources, including natural gas, coal and nuclear were adversely affected.
I think we were closer to total grid failure than ERCOT was reporting ("China Syndrome"?) and circuits were being turned off that mistakenly included some essential services like hospitals.
I think we were closer to total grid failure than ERCOT was reporting ("China Syndrome"?) and circuits were being turned off that mistakenly included some essential services like hospitals.
Thunderlips
Footballguy
Lead. The vacations will always be there. It's not every decade that people in the State you are elected in are without power, water and are freezing to death.
squistion
Footballguy
Jeebus, give Biden and Democrats some time on this, there are more pressing matters at the moment, like COVID to deal with.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
There’s widespread agreement that infrastructure needs improvement. There is large disagreement about how best to do it.
The General
Footballguy
This is very, very unusual weather, right? This exposed flaws in their system that need to be addressed. Living in Seattle preparing for 100 degree weather days and high humidity isn’t something we do. It also isn’t as deadly when it does happen occasionally and have such drastic ramifications that freezing temps do.
Political points will be scored left and right as no one will want to take the brunt of this, what will come out of it I guess is they get stuff in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again in 30 years or whenever this weather hits them again.
I’d suspect that not too many people on FBG’s have any level of expertise on Texas power grid structures (and if they do they are busy right now) other than what they read in an article yesterday.
Political points will be scored left and right as no one will want to take the brunt of this, what will come out of it I guess is they get stuff in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again in 30 years or whenever this weather hits them again.
I’d suspect that not too many people on FBG’s have any level of expertise on Texas power grid structures (and if they do they are busy right now) other than what they read in an article yesterday.
Thunderlips
Footballguy
For a state that prides itself on those guys not abandoning the Alamo....Ted Cruz REALLY doesn't get "it".
sho nuff
Footballguy
Is this because it simply is boring? I mean it makes good talk to say we need it...say that we sort of agree its needed. But when it comes down to spending money...nobody wants to...because its boring stuff...people don't see it as tangible things but more of a concept.
The General
Footballguy
glvsav37
Footballguy
Because thats exactly what happened during the Covid crisis.
Politicians cant let any crisis go unexploited. Sickening.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
This and we are at a point where you can’t let the other “side” get a “win”.
joffer
Footballguy
It’s not hard to check ERCOT’s website and see where the shortfalls this week have been, but yeah the how and why I’m sure are quite complicated.
shadrap
Footballguy
wondering the same thing. what policies made this a cluster? this is 2021, not 1776 & Texas being the largest producer of energy in the union. I don't get it.
glvsav37
Footballguy
so you put the family on a plane and say "sorry honey, we are in a historic situation and as an elected official, I need to be here helping any way I can"
There are countless cases where regular people miss out on vacations and other life events b/c work or duty calls. I doubt this guy is punching a clock just so he can accrue his .5 vacation days per week of work like the rest of the working population does. He can catch the next flight to Mexico when this is all resolved.
jm192
Footballguy
I agree with this. These sort of efforts are typically handled by local governments. I don't know that Ted has a lot of role at this point--and whatever role he has can be exercised on a beach in Cancun.fatguyinalittlecoat said:
It's a huge missed opportunity. Texas Senator on the front lines for Texans in crisis is a great headline. But I don't think he's a failure of a representative for not doing so. We lost power several years ago in KY to an ice storm. Several cities were affected. At no point, did I stop and wonder where Mitch was.
Cruz ia awful for a lot of reasons. This to me aint one of 'em.
The General
Footballguy
I believe you are in Austin (apologies if my notebook is wrong) I lived, worked, down there years ago and have a few friends down there still. One of my absolute favorite places in the US. I’m so sorry you guys are dealing with this, I hope you, my friends, and everyone down there are as good as possible.joffer said:
This whole situation is just a mess and while it definitely needs to be looked at as to why certain decisions were made, this does seem like a situation where we are dealing with very extreme conditions.
Absolutely people should be judged for their decision making when it’s all done and make sure systems are upgraded in a smart way for next time.
I could be totally wrong with my takes on this as I am just reading stuff on the internet.
The Commish
Footballguy
It's a result of piss poor planning for things that COULD go wrong but likely WON'T go wrong. It was a gamble and they lost the bet. We all know that things COULD freeze (at least any of us who've paid attention even a little bit since the mid 90s). Plan for the worst, hope for the best is sound policy. It costs a lot of money, but it prevents things like this from ever happening.timschochet said:
This isn't a political issue IMO.
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