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    Yes, Texas is in bad shape -- here's why it's only going to get worse

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory
    February 19, 2021

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Texas governor urges pastors to pressure Texas House over anti-transgender 'bathroom bills'
    Gov. Greg Abbott prays with event organizer Evelyn Davison at the 66th annual Texas State Prayer Breakfast in Austin on May 1, 2017. Davison has organized the event for the last 43 years. (Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory

    The misery and death in Texas, where the state electric grid was taken down by unusual but predictable cold weather, underscore the misguided conservative Republican values of less regulation, devil-may-care burning of fossil fuels, dangerous tax cuts and unfettered trust in markets as the universal problem solver.

    In Texas, the blame for the unheated homes, the dark urban skylines and winter water shortages is on just one politician—Greg Abbott. He has been governor of the Lone Star state for more than six years.

    Abbott gained notoriety in the past few days for making the ridiculous claim that Texans are freezing because windmills fail in the cold. The fact is that they are running just fine in such spots as Iowa, Minnesota, Alaska, Finland and even Siberia.

    Texas didn't require that natural gas pipelines be built in anticipation of severe weather, didn't require sufficient natural gas storage for electric power plants and didn't insist that the electric grid itself be hardened against severe heat and cold.

    The reason Texans are freezing is that Texas:

    • Failed to require that natural gas pipelines be built in anticipation of severe weather
    • Didn't require sufficient natural gas storage for electric power plants
    • Neglected to insist that the electric grid itself be hardened against severe heat and cold, more of which is certain as climate change generates raucous weather

    What did Abbott do? He appointed all three members of the Texas Public Utility Commission who failed to ensure adequacy of the Texas electric grid for all weather.

    Inadequate Reserves

    Abbott's commissioners, embracing his anti-regulatory philosophy, did not require adequate power generation reserves. That's crucial. When electric generators go down in extreme weather, accidents or even planned maintenance, there needs to be plentiful additional capacity to ensure the juice flows.

    The savings from cheapskating in this area are quickly overwhelmed by the damage done by blackouts and days without power in either extreme cold or extreme heat.

    Allowing utilities to slash the size of their staffs, especially line workers, compounds a disaster.

    The set-up for this disaster began years before Abbott was born in 1957. Two decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Texas exempted itself from the then newly established federal regulation of electricity reliability and pricing.

    Separate Power Grid

    Most of Texas has its own power grid that doesn't connect to the massive Eastern U.S. or Western U.S. grids. The Panhandle and most of East Texas are on the Eastern Interconnection. The El Paso area is connected to the Western grid.

    The rest of the state is under the system operator laughably named Electric Reliability Council of Texas, better known as ERCOT. Significantly, those areas connected to the rest of the country have not had issues.

    That the Texas grid was not designed for predictable severe weather and lacked backup generating capacity has been known and documented for years. Yet under Abbott, the situation festered.

    A blistering assessment of the Texas situation was provided to DCReport by two deeply informed electricity experts, Larry Kellerman, managing director of private equity investor I Squared Capital, and Robert McCullough, an independent utility economist in Oregon. They said:

    Larry Kellerman utility investment adviser Larry Kellerman

    "The unfortunate state of the ERCOT power system can be summarized in two words: systematic unpreparedness. The origins of this disaster included the lowest reserve margins in North America, ignoring basic maxims of preparing for bad winter weather, and a market design that rewards shortages at the cost of consumers."

    Kellerman's firm is a $24.5 billion private equity fund that invests in modernizing electric utility systems. McCullough is feared by utilities because of his ability to cut through their obfuscations with killer facts and smart financial analysis.

    Getting Worse

    The problems that Kellerman and McCullough documented in their report are only going to get worse so long as Abbott does what he has been doing. The governor comes up with crazy lies like blaming the proposed Green New Deal for his state's current electricity fiasco. His Republican allies in the legislature, by the way, are just as dishonest about the reasons the juice stopped flowing.

    Indeed, anti-regulation ideology is so deep in the heart of Texas that Abbott's predecessor, Rick Perry, the Trump Energy secretary, says Texans would rather freeze without electric power than let Washington regulate their grid.

    Robert McCullough utility economistRobert McCullough

    Texas will have a terrible shortfall in its capacity to generate electricity at least through 2024, a National Electricity Reliability Council report shows. That means extreme hot or cold weather will result in more blackouts just when people most need air-conditioning or heating.

    Texas fully embraced the idea of electricity markets to make for a stronger and more efficient electric system. It did so under auction rules sold to the Texas legislature by lobbyists for Enron. You remember Enron? It was the utterly corrupt, electricity-price manipulating Texas company whose top executives were tried and imprisoned after the company collapsed.

    Some 14 years ago, I exposed the Enron-designed "electricity markets" for rules that inherently made prices rise, allowing power profiteers to gouge their customers' wallets.

    Defenders of the Enron design of electricity auctions say that higher prices will prompt consumers to reduce their use of juice during peak demand periods. But without a convenient price change notification system how would you know that the price of power jumped 10-fold from five minutes ago?

    Poor Economics

    How can consumers respond to prices they don't know are rising – or falling. The only honest and economically sound answer is they can't. Abbott and his ill-informed appointees don't understand that, and don't want Texans to understand.

    Kellerman and McCullough said Thursday the theory that "mandating even higher prices" will prevent blackouts "is simply poor economics." In Texas, the "widespread blackouts show that mandating high prices during emergencies has not created an incentive to build enough generation, make sure that it is operational during extreme weather or served consumers adequately."

    And they note that the "privilege—not the inherent right—to participate in ERCOT's power marketplace" comes with a responsibility to apply well-established investment, design and operation practices "necessary to assure operational integrity during inclement weather."

    Instead, the regulators appointed by Republican governors produced "a 20th-century solution for what should no longer be a 21st-century problem."

    The cheapest and smartest way for electricity profiteers to fill their pockets is to eliminate generating capacity. Buying a fleet of power plants and then shutting one down allows profiteers to rig electricity markets so their profits balloon, as I showed here and here.

    From $30 to $9,000

    In Texas electricity that last week cost $30 soared to $9,000 once the bitter cold brought down much of the grid.

    I've written about electricity regulation for more than four decades and taught its fundamentals for eight years to graduate business and law students at Syracuse University.

    In 2006 in The New York Times, I showed how vulnerable the Texas electricity "market" is to manipulation by profiteers.

    Creating electric grids that aren't up to the task is one of the ways that profiteers benefit,]. No American politician has done more to help profiteers than Abbott.

    That Texans seem bewildered about their plight even though the problems have been known for years is not surprising. Texas utilities felt free under Abbott and his two Republican predecessors, Rick Perry and George W. Bush, to attack honest journalism about the electricity situation in Texas.

    One giant Texas utility, Reliant, assigned multiple executives to harass a Galveston newspaper reporter who wrote accurate pieces about facts that the Houston-based utility wanted to hide from its customers.

    One thing Texans should know is that going forward more deadly disasters caused by a lack of electricity generating capacity are predictable. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., assigned by Congress in 2005 to monitor reliability, found that only two of the 21 electric grids it studied will lack enough capacity to meet demand in 2024. That is a very short time in which to increase generating capacity.

    The Canadian system serving Ontario province will be short 615 megawatts of capacity. The Texas shortfall will be six times that at 4,819 megawatts.

    That electric generating capacity shortfall equals all the power needed to serve about 3.1 million homes. Texas has almost 10 million households.

    When the predictable blackouts happen in the future will Texans know who is to blame for their misery? Or will they believe official fairy tales about wind turbines freezing up and the Green New Deal which as of now is only an idea?

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Enjoy good journalism?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

    We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

    Value Raw Story?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Should Trump be allowed back on social media?

    Kimmel ridicules Mike Lindell's new social media site as a gathering place for 'paranoia and mustache wax'

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 14, 2021

    My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell announced that his four-year project to create his own social media site that combines YouTube and Twitter, the two places he's been throw off.

    "That's right, come get lost in a world of paranoia and mustache wax," said Kimmel. "Why do I get the feeling Mike Lindell is going to be living in a motel soon?"

    The so-called "Free Speech" site will ban swear words and anyone taking the Lord's name in vain.

    "Great! That means kids can watch you have a full mental collapse too!" Kimmel celebrated. "Which C-word do you think he's talking about? Ciabatta? The pillow man has a lot going on. He's also launching what he believes will be 'a rival to Amazon' called 'My Store.' I spent the whole afternoon going through this, and there are some delightful items for sale at MyStore."

    According to the late-night host, the site offers things like peanut brittle, "freedom flags," which he explained are 48 percent more patriotic than regular flags. And a children's book depicting former President Donald Trump as a Neanderthal beating up a dinosaur with a copy of the Constitution.

    "And that's just the tip of the iceberg," Kimmel said. "There's a bunch of products that sound like we made them up. We didn't."

    His favorite, however, was the $39.99 lifesize cardboard cutout of Lindell squeezing a pillow, "lurking menacingly in your home."

    "Who would buy this? I mean, besides me? Who would buy this?" Kimmel asked.

    See the video below:


    Greg Gutfeld's Fox News 'comedy' show mocked for being preempted after being on for 'half a Scaramucci'

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 13, 2021

    Greg Gutfeld's new Fox News show was expanded briefly to weeknights but according to reporter Aaron Rupar, it disappeared Tuesday night. In Anthony Scaramucci time, that's just half a "Scaramucci," he remarked.

    Only half a Scaramucci after its debut, Gutfeld! is abruptly preempted
    — Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1618370057.0

    The former White House communications director spent just 11 days on the job. Former President Donald Trump was so infamous for his hiring and firing that Scaramucci became a unit of measure by which employment under Trump was calculated.

    Gutfeld was preempted by former Trumpster Larry Kudlow, who infamously screamed at Dr. Anthony Fauci for disagreeing hydroxychloroquine was a cure for COVID-19. Fauci ultimately was proved right, and Kudlow got a Fox News show.

    The show from Gutfeld was an attempt to craft humor over liberal policies or progressive statements, but it has frequently fallen flat with the audience.

    "As for those late-night shows we're supposed to compete against: Why bother? Who do they offend?" Gutfeld asked in the opening monologue of the first episode. Since then, reviews have come in from traditional media outlets questioning the hypocrisy at those it pokes fun.

    It's unclear if Gutfeld's show is on an unexpected hiatus or if Kudlow had some breaking economic news that needed to be addressed at 11 p.m. EST on Tuesday night. Either way, Gutfeld was nowhere to be found.

    Here are the biggest mistakes from Chauvin's lawyers today — other than paying expert $11,000 for testimony: experts

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 13, 2021

    Barry Brodd, a former police officer and so-called "use-of-force expert," was paid $11,000 to say that Derek Chauvin's actions were "justified."

    According to the New York Times and Washington Post, if Brodd seemed to be having a tough time saying the words "top" when asked about Derek Chauvin's positioning on George Floyd. As if it was a game of "charades," Brodd repeatedly didn't "understand" simple questions about where Chauvin was with respect to Floyd.

    "Yeah, no," said trial attorney Katie Phang speaking to MSNBC's Joy Reid Tuesday evening. She went on to explain that Brodd was unlikable and that he and the defense ultimately failed during the proceedings. She went on to wonder why the defense team would use him when there are other more likable experts.

    Brodd was called in as an expert witness in the Laquan McDonald trial as well, which Phang said he failed at too.

    "What was really critical about this expert is that he was trying desperately to show in a very clinical way that use of force has to be done, you know, compliant with police procedures, et cetera," she went on. "The problem is the defense must assume that the jury is not paying attention because we heard from the actual guy, Lt. Johnny Mercil, who said that technique that Derek Chauvin used is not taught by the Minnesota PD. So, we already have the person who is actually in charge of everything, including the chief of police saying we don't condone this. We don't authorize this and the other critical mistake made by the defense was through this guy, Barry Brodd."

    She went on to say that a "golden rule" of trials is never to ask the members of the jury to put themselves in the shoes of the defendant.

    "That's a mistrial so what's critically wrong with this argument they're doing? If you ask the jurors any of these 12 jurors to put themselves in the shoes of Derek Chauvin, none are ever going to say what that cop did was reasonable, objectively, subjectively wasn't reasonable so that was a major mistake because none of those jurors will say that 9:29 on somebody without a pulse as something they would ever do as a reasonable officer. That was a critical problem," she said.

    See the video below:


    Why Barry Brodd was such a huge and expensive failure for the defense www.youtube.com

     
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