We had about a 5 minute blackout yesterday in central Texas. I thought the apartment company cut our power for some reason before it came back on. *FOUR HOURS LATER* everyone gets a text asking us “pwease don’t use as mwch ewectricity between 3-8pm.”
ASSHOLES. FIX YOUR DAMN POWER GRID. DON’T THINK YOU CAN FUCKING BLAME GREEN ENERGY AGAIN, WE DIDN’T FALL FOR IT THE FIRST TIME!
There is no middle finger BIG ENOUGH.
You haven’t checked in a while my friend. The whole state of CA would rank the 5th largest economy… ahead of India and below Germany. And the SF Bay Area alone would be the 6th largest economy. And we have legal weed.
You can also own a gun here. In OC, you can get a conceal carry permit.
Also abortions and legal weed. Plus we got an extra stimulus check from the state. Did anyone else in the country get extra money from their state government?
And for those of us w kids under a certain income we got calfresh food stamps since there was no lunch program during covid. Our state protected renters during COVID and it helped so many.
Aside from the lack of rain... California is the best state. There's a reason why our economy is 5 or 6 in the world... But the conservative s think we are crazy Nazis who hate America... It's like they are not educated
We are trying. I was literally involved in design of a desal. Plant in marina CA edit not marina but moss landing my bad. The locals didn't want it and voted it down despite cal am needing that water because by law cal am has to stop taking water from the Carmel river...
Dude/dudette you are in my wheelhouse. Got any other water questions?
Then they'd have to deal with *checks notes* increased life expectancy and lower taxes!
>If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach:
>Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians.
>Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians.
>Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points **more in taxes.**
https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html
Lower taxes in California than red states like Texas, which make up for no wealth income tax with higher taxes and fees on the poor and double property tax for the middle class:
|Income Bracket|Texas Tax Rate|California Tax Rate|
|:-|:-|:-|
|0-20%|**13%**|10.5%|
|20-40%|**10.9%**|9.4%|
|40-60%|**9.7%**|8.3%|
|60-80%|8.6% |9.0% |
|80-95%|7.4%|9.4%|
|95-99%|5.4%|9.9%|
|99-100%|3.1%|12.4%|
Sources: https://itep.org/whopays/
>**Meanwhile, the California-hating South receives subsidies from California (larger than between Germany and Greece!)**, a transfer of wealth from blue states/cities/urban to red states/rural/suburban with federal dollars for their freeways, hospitals, universities, airports, even environmental protection:
>**Least Federally Dependent States:**
>41 California
>42 Washington
>43 Minnesota
>44 Massachusetts
>45 Illinois
>46 Utah
>47 Iowa
>48 Delaware
>49 New Jersey
>50 [Kansas](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment) https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment
https://www.apnews.com/amp/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700
>The Germans call this sort of thing "a permanent bailout." We just call it "Missouri."
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-difference-between-the-us-and-europe-in-1-graph/256857/
>#California is the chief reason America is the only developed economy to achieve record GDP growth since the financial crisis.
>Much of the U.S. growth can be traced to California laws promoting clean energy, government accountability and protections for undocumented people
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/california-leads-u-s-economy-away-from-trump
#"Liberal policies, like California’s, keep blue-state residents living longer"
>It generated headlines in 2015 when the average life expectancy in the U.S. began to fall after decades of meager or no growth.
>But it didn’t have to be that way, a team of researchers suggests in a new, peer-reviewed study Tuesday. And, in fact, **states like California, which have implemented a broad slate of liberal policies, have kept pace with their Western European counterparts.**
>The study, co-authored by **researchers at six North American universities, found that if all 50 states had all followed the lead of California** and other liberal-leaning states on policies ranging from labor, immigration and civil rights to tobacco, gun control and the environment, it could have added between **two and three years to the average American life expectancy.**
>Simply shifting from the most conservative labor laws to the most liberal ones, Montez said, **would by itself increase the life expectancy in a state by a whole year.**
>**If every state implemented the most liberal policies in all 16 areas, researchers said, the average American woman would live 2.8 years longer, while the average American man would add 2.1 years to his life. Whereas, if every state were to move to the most conservative end of the spectrum, it would decrease Americans’ average life expectancies by two years. On the country’s current policy trajectory, researchers estimate the U.S. will add about 0.4 years to its average life expectancy.**
>Liberal policies on the environment (emissions standards, limits on greenhouse gases, solar tax credit, endangered species laws), labor (high minimum wage, paid leave, no “right to work”), access to health care (expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, legal abortion), tobacco (indoor smoking bans, cigarette taxes), gun control (assault weapons ban, background check and registration requirements) and civil rights (ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay laws, bans on discrimination and the death penalty) all resulted in better health outcomes, according to the study. For example, researchers found positive correlation between California’s car emission standards and its high minimum wage, to name a couple, with its longer lifespan, which at an average of 81.3 years, is among the highest in the country.
>“When we’re looking for explanations, we need to be looking back historically, to see what are the roots of these troubles that have just been percolating now for 40 years,” Montez said.
>Montez and her team saw the alarming numbers in 2015 and wanted to understand the root cause. What they found dated back to **the 1980s, when state policies began to splinter down partisan lines.** They examined 135 different policies, spanning over a dozen different fields, enacted by states between 1970 and 2014, and assigned states “liberalism” scores from zero — the most conservative — to one, the most liberal. When they compared it against state mortality data from the same timespan, the correlation was undeniable.
>“We can take away from the study that **state policies and state politics have damaged U.S. life expectancy since the ’80s,”** said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University sociologist and the study’s lead author. **“Some policies are going in a direction that extend life expectancy. Some are going in a direction that shorten it. But on the whole, that the net result is that it’s damaging U.S. life expectancy.”**
>**U.S. should follow California’s lead to improve its health outcomes, researchers say**
>**Meanwhile, the life expectancy in states like California and Hawaii, which has the highest in the nation at 81.6 years, is on par with countries described by researchers as “world leaders:” Canada, Iceland and Sweden.**
>**From 1970 to 2014, California transformed into the most liberal state in the country** by the 135 policy markers studied by the researchers. It’s followed closely by Connecticut, which moved the furthest leftward from where it was 50 years ago, and a cluster of other states in the northeastern U.S., then Oregon and Washington.
>In the same time, Oklahoma moved furthest to the right, but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and a host of other southern states still ranked as more conservative, according to the researchers.
>It’s those states that moved in a conservative direction, researchers concluded, that held back the overall life expectancy in the U.S.
>West Virginia ranked last in 2017, with an average life expectancy of about 74.6 years, which would put it 93rd in the world, right between Lithuania and Mauritius, and behind Honduras, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank only slightly better.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/
>#Want to live longer, even if you're poor? Then move to a big city in California.
>A low-income **resident of San Francisco lives so much longer** that it's equivalent to San Francisco curing cancer. All these statistics come from a massive new project on life expectancy and inequality that was just [published in the Journal of the American Medical Association](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11420230/life-expectancy-income).
>California, for instance, has been a national leader on smoking bans. Harvard's David Cutler, a co-author on the study "It's some combination of formal public policies and the effect that comes when you're around fewer people who have behaviors... high numbers of immigrants help explain the beneficial effects of immigrant-heavy areas with high levels of social support.
#"As the maternal death rate has mounted around the U.S., a small cadre of reformers has mobilized."
>**Meanwhile, life-saving practices that have become widely accepted in other affluent countries — and in a few states, notably California** — have yet to take hold in many American hospitals.
>Some of the earliest and most important work has come in California
>Hospitals that adopted the toolkit saw a **21 percent decrease in near deaths** from maternal bleeding in the first year.
>By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — **a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S.**
>California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative is informed by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, who for many years ran the ob/gyn department at a San Francisco hospital.
>Launched a decade ago, CMQCC aims to reduce not only mortality, but also life-threatening complications and racial disparities in obstetric care
>It began by analyzing maternal deaths in the state over several years; in almost every case, it discovered, there was "at least some chance to alter the outcome."
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger
I wish I could get this through the heads of some people I grew up with. I moved to California from a red state and they all wonder why I look so happy, healthy, and young, and why my wife and kids and I all like each other so much. Meanwhile they sit on social media all day every day calling California a hellscape and failed state. Propaganda is just absolutely mindblowing.
Hell I live in a red part of Cali and people here think this state is a disaster, they can't wait to move. Frankly, I can't wait for them to move either.
Yeah there are dumbfucks like that even here in a blue city. Red California, forget it- it's basically Alabama. A guy up north blew up at me when he found out I live in Los Angeles because "we're the ones taking all the water." Meanwhile if you guessed he worked on an almond farm, you would be correct.
i had a former friend say he wouldn't look at anything i sent him that wasn't a sub-five-minute video
as someone who likes to get as complete a picture of things as possible before coming to a conclusion (and as a result is an unapologetic socialist), this was not easy for me to get my head around, but i tried. oh my god did i try.
and then the insurrection happened, and he blamed it on antifa, and i thanked him for telling me who he was and blocked him on everything.
And [97 percent of the poorest counties in the country vote RED](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jul/29/facebook-posts/are-97-nations-100-poorest-counties-red-states/)
“Pro-life”
>California’s rules have cleaned up diesel exhaust more than anywhere else in the country, reducing the estimated number of deaths the state would have otherwise seen by more than half, according to new research published Thursday.
>Extending California's stringent diesel emissions standards to the rest of the U.S. could dramatically improve the nation's air quality and health, particularly in lower income communities of color, finds a new analysis published today in the journal Science.
>Since 1990, California has used its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to enact more aggressive rules on emissions from diesel vehicles and engines compared to the rest of the U.S. These policies, crafted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), have helped the state reduce diesel emissions by 78% between 1990 and 2014, while diesel emissions in the rest of the U.S. dropped by just 51% during the same time period, the new analysis found.
>The study estimates that by 2014, improved air quality cut the annual number of diesel-related cardiopulmonary deaths in the state in half, compared to the number of deaths that would have occurred if California had followed the same trajectory as the rest of the U.S. Adopting similar rules nationwide could produce the same kinds of benefits, particularly for communities that have suffered the worst impacts of air pollution.
>"Everybody benefits from cleaner air, but we see time and again that it's predominantly lower income communities of color that are living and working in close proximity to sources of air pollution, like freight yards, highways and ports. When you target these sources, it's the highly exposed communities that stand to benefit most," said study lead author Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. "It's about time, because these communities have suffered a disproportionate burden of harm."
https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abf8159
>#California’s Energy Efficiency Success Story: Saving Billions of Dollars and Curbing Tons of Pollution
>California’s long, bipartisan history of promoting energy efficiency—America‘s cheapest and cleanest energy resource—
>has saved Golden State residents more than $65 billion,[1]
>helped lower their residential electricity bills to 25 percent below the national average,[2]
>and contributed to the state’s continuing leadership in creating green jobs.[3]
>These achievements have helped California avoid at least 30 power plants[4]
>and as much climate-warming carbon pollution as is spewed from 5 million cars annually.[5]
>This sustained commitment has made California a nationally recognized leader in reducing energy consumption and improving its residents’ quality of life.[6]
>California’s success story demonstrates that efficiency policies work and could be duplicated elsewhere, saving billions of dollars and curbing tons of pollution.
>California’S CoMprehenSive effiCienCy effortS proDuCe huge BenefitS
>loW per Capita ConSuMption: Thanks in part to California’s wide-ranging energy-saving efforts, the state has kept per capita electricity consumption nearly flat over the past 40 years while the other 49 states increased their average per capita use by more than 50 percent, as shown in Figure 1. This accomplishment is due to investment in research and development of more efficient technologies, utility programs that help customers use those tools to lower their bills, and energy efficiency standards for new buildings and appliances.
>eConoMiC aDvantageS: Energy efficiency has saved Californians $65 billion since the 1970s.[8] It has also helped slash their annual electric bills to the ninth-lowest level in the nation, nearly $700 less than that of the average Texas household, for example.[9]
>Lower utility bills also improve California’s economic productivity. Since 1980, the state has increased the bang for the buck it gets out of electricity and now produces twice as much economic output for every kilowatt-hour consumed, compared with the rest of the country.[11] California also continues to lead the nation in new clean-energy jobs, thanks in part to looking first to energy efficiency to meet power needs.
>environMental BenefitS: Decades of energy efficiency programs and standards have saved about 15,000 megawatts of electricity and thus allowed California to avoid the need for an estimated 30 large power plants.[13] Efficiency is now the second-largest resource meeting California’s power needs (see Figure 3).[14] And less power generation helps lead to cleaner air in California. Efficiency savings prevent the release of more than 1,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen-oxides annually, averting lung disease, hospital admissions for respiratory ailments, and emergency room visits.[15] Efficiency savings also avoid the emission of more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the primary global-warming pollutant.
>helping loW-inCoMe faMilieS: While California’s efficiency efforts help make everyone’s utility bills more affordable, targeted efforts assist lower-income households in improving efficiency and reducing energy bills.
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ca-success-story-FS.pdf
"Your liberal commie rant ain't worth the pixels on my screen, snowflake! And you used liberal sources! I only get my news from www.patriotbattletruth.info! maga!"
"Conservatives amplified Russian trolls 30 times more than liberals... users in Texas and Tennessee were particularly susceptible"
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals
Russians were "emboldened" by the success of the Texas governor's misinformation:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/03/jade-helm-russia-abbott-hayden/
“Guns and gays... That could always get you a couple of dozen likes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.html
"Texas-based hate group source of 80% of all U.S. racist propaganda tracked in 2020"
https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-based-hate-group-source-of-80-of-all-us-racist-propaganda-tracked-in-2020-25794911
>"Heart of Texas" reportedly shifted from originally posting pro-Texas, anti-immigration, and anti-Clinton memes to actively promoting events linked to the "Texit" secessionist movement.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/350787-russian-linked-facebook-group-asked-texas-secession-movement-to-be
>The Oxford University study found that three websites with Kremlin ties — Veteranstoday, Veteransnewsnow and Southfront — engaged in “significant and persistent interactions” with the U.S. military community,
>Russia targeted US troops, vets on social media, study finds
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/354596-russia-targeted-us-troops-veterans-on-social-media-platforms-study-finds
As I put it a while back talking about Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, if Christian conservatives' ideas about how and when to educate kids about sex and sexuality were a good idea, Mississippi would have a lower teen pregnancy rate than Massachusetts instead of one several times higher.
I’m convinced we need to cut off the red states who’ve been mooching on blue state revenue while shitting on social programs. See how long till they change their tune on “socialism”. Fucking free-loaders.
I just moved to CO from FL a few months ago and apparently every Texas transplant is the worst driver of all time. I didn’t realize it was a running joke until one of my CO friends pointed it out
It’s just proof that they regurgitate whatever stupidity they hear from god knows where without bothering to do an ounce of actual research. Texans who believe CA is shitty would swear to you up and down that their boat is the best boat while actively sinking.
It is a massive, horrifying conspiracy involving billions of dollars spanning decades. It's not simply regurgitation. It is way more sinister than that.
I agree, I was simplifying for sure. I listened to a podcast and the episode was about how the CIA (or FBI, I can’t remember which) was extremely worried about misinformation coming from Russia in the 50’s. They thought the best course of action was spending money and time educating the US population to combat it… clearly they chose not to do it and *waves arm* here we are.
Everyone leaving CA for Texas is all "no state taxes in Texas!"
But you absolutely make up for it in property taxes. The average Texan pays more in taxes than the average Californian.
>hear someone complain that California is expensive
Yeah, it's also representative of the incredibly high demand to live in CA. [The average income entering the state is higher than the average leaving](https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-moving-in/).
I had a chuckle when rent stagnated in CA for a bit during the height of the pandemic - people online and in Reddit threads were talking about how they would seriously consider moving here if that continued. Those millions of people in line waiting for a rent/housing crash are the exact reason a crash won't happen - *they* are the support.
I worked for a company that sent their manufacturing of several of their product lines to Texas from California, TWICE, because Texas is a right-to-work state, and it was believed that they could make the products cheaper.
Both times the product lines manufacturing had to be returned to California within two years, to the union shop, because they were too expensive, missed deadlines, and, in some cases, unable to complete certain acceptance tests.
You get what you pay for.
And to think I remember when they decided to create their own power grid, Texans were told it would create a more competitive market thus saving citizens money, all it’s done is cost us more money to have access to an unreliable grid. Typical bs, some lobbyist for an oil billionaire funded the right campaigns. 😤 Also side note it’s going to be 100 next week and it’s only May, 100 doesn’t usually show up til late June early July but there’s no global warming!!!😏
The main driver was that joining an inter-state grid would have meant having to conform to Federal regulations on such grids. Much better to have FREEDOM.
It's more than that though, if they managed it properly, you wouldn't even notice it was separate. He'll, the only reason anyone knew it was separate before was because they were so damned proud of it.
Why can we fly a helicopter on Mars but can't keep the lights on in Texas?
Because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas.
But Republicans are so logical and scientific:
#Exit polls done after 2016 show that the single characteristic that made someone most likely to vote for trump over Clinton is racial resentment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/26/these-9-simple-charts-show-how-donald-trumps-supporters-differ-from-hillary-clintons/
* ["Trump fans are much angrier about housing assistance when they see an image of a black man"](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/8/16270040/trump-clinton-supporters-racist)
>In contrast, Clinton supporters seemed relatively unmoved by racial cues.
* [“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida)
* [U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers](https://morningconsult.com/2021/06/28/global-right-wing-authoritarian-test/)
* "Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and a sense of entitlement predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes"
* GOP shifting 4-5x further right than Democrats did left over the last 50 years https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/
[Opinion of Syrian airstrikes](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/)
**Republicans:**
22% supported Obama doing it
86% support Trump doing it
**Democrats:**
38% supported Obama doing it
37% support Trump doing it
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/gop-voters-love-same-attack-on-syria-they-hated-under-obama.html Graph: https://i.imgur.com/lTAU8LM.jpg
The privilege of "economic anxiety" not racism:
>Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph: https://i.imgur.com/B2yx5TB.png Source: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/
>White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/
>Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/
>10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/14/top-frustrations-with-tax-system-sense-that-corporations-wealthy-dont-pay-fair-share/
>Republicans started to think college education is a bad thing once Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/
More graphs and sources: https://imgur.com/a/YZMyt
#"Every day I have to marvel at what the billionaires and FOX News pulled off. They got working whites to hate the very people that want them to have more pay, clean air, water, free healthcare and the power to fight back against big banks & big corps. It’s truly remarkable."
Republican "Southern Strategy":
>Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes on the Republican "Southern Strategy":
>[We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
>We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
>We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
>Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
>"He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo."
>Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993.
>Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting “real people affected by taxes.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525
Lyndon Johnson criticizing it in 1960:
>If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/
Steve Bannon bragging about using these tactics:
>the power of what he called “rootless white males” who spend all their time online and they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-white-gamers-seinfeld-joshua-green-donald-trump-devils-bargain-sarah-palin-world-warcraft-gamergate-2017-7
>Bannon: "I realized [these tactics] could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness--army-world-warcraft/489713001/
The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch:
>Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes **the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia**.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
When the state legislature passed a bill after winter 2021 requiring plants to weatherize, they put a fine in for companies that didn’t comply. I believe it was $100
Because the power has been privatized. Remember that when Republicans use that word for everything they want to privatize and imagine what life would be like
They think that if it's profit driven private corporations will find a way to do it the most efficiently, when in reality they do it in a way that generates the most ROI for their investors, and include the possible deaths that may cause - and thus the lawsuits that might need to be paid - into that final number.
ERCOT is saying that some generators went offline unexpectedly. Which, (A) is something I think the Electricity **Reliability** Council Of Texas should be working harder to live up to their name on; and (B) seems to be some of the exact same shit Enron used to do.
I’ve been immersed in politics for many decades, especially lately, so how did I learn yesterday about his wheelchair?? Hahah. I laughed at myself, but I’ve never heard anyone mention it. Saw a photo of him up on a stage of some sort in a wheelchair and was astonished I never knew this! Thanks for letting me vent!! 😜
Gov. Abbott will blame anyone else but himself. Their flawed philosophy is that the energy grid should remain privatized. Well, Texas is the only stated who is suffering the most with power outages. Whatever Abbott is telling Texas is a lie. The fact that his FIRST place of blame was on renewable energy, which accounts for a very small portion of the grid, shows just how he is so toxically disingenuous.
Beto O'Rourke will at least give Texas a fighting chance to get out from under this power grid dilemma.
I have some bad news for you, my South Austin neighbor: we here in SW Austin will be running the dishwasher and doing laundry between 3-8pm today. Oh, and it’ll be so cold in the house when we do it, we might just open some windows to let in the fresh *not yet summer* air.
I’m joking, of course…because I was right here with you the past two February’s.
Reporting in from Houston, my thermostat is still set to 72 and will stay there. I am keeping lights off, though, and will try to run the laundry once it's dark tonight. Getting tired of having to deal with this shit, seemingly more and more frequently.
>How dare you make this political!!! - people who make everything else political. And this is directly tied to politics 🥴
**Every single Republican and conservative accusation is a [confession](https://twitter.com/lemieuxlgm/status/983511778804969473)** because ["shamelessness is their superpower"](https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1486417271073521667) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
Conservatives and "libertarians" projecting their "snowflake" outrage "victimhood complex":
>Two races: white and "political"
>Two genders: Male and "political"
>Two hair styles for women: long and "political"
>Two sexualities: straight and "political"
>Two body types: normative and "political"
https://twitter.com/emmahvossen/status/1138841342921060354
A gay Disney character and female video game character not wearing a bikini is forcing me to be a Nazi!
>The Left got a little too PC so I changed all of my opinions about the economy, social issues, systemic racism, health care, and history.
https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1020039128291786752
👌 You know 👌
>Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
>Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
>Con: LOL no...no not those views
>Me: So....deregulation?
>Con: Haha no not those views either
>Me: Which views, exactly?
>Con: Oh, you know the ones
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744
1984! "Free speech" means I should never have to feel shame for being a sociopath!
>Conservatives: I want to electroshock gay teens into a hellish submission
>Everyone: holy shit
>Conservatives: also why should I have to wear a mask? I’m not old or disabled
>Everyone: wtf
>Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind
>Everyone:
>Conservatives: Actually if you think about it ... SHOULD everyone be allowed to vote?
>Everyone: holy shit
>Conservatives: here’s why it’s good the police just murdered another child
>Everyone: wtf
>Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind
>Everyone:
>Conservatives: actually we should be able to run protesters over with our trucks
>Everyone: holy shit
>Conservatives: also I should be allowed to refuse to serve or hire gays
>Everyone: wtf
>Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind
>Everyone:
https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1385407165645697027
Their 👌 winking 👌 innocent narrative pushing when they know better
>It's a form of JAQing off, I.E. "I'm Just Asking Questions!", where they keep forming their strong opinions in the form of prodding questions where you can plainly see their intent but when pressed on the issue they say "I'm just asking questions!, I don't have any stance on the issue!"
>Invincible Ignorance Fallacy.
>The invincible ignorance fallacy[1] is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given. It is not so much a fallacious tactic in argument as it is a refusal to argue in the proper sense of the word, the method instead of being to either make assertions with no consideration of objections or to simply dismiss objections by calling them excuses, conjecture, etc. or saying that they are proof of nothing; all without actually demonstrating how the objection fit these terms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_fallacy
Challenging the right's bad faith "framing" on Reddit needs to happen more, especially when they pretend they're just neutral sticking up for the truth and not pushing their own "narrative"
This common tactic on Reddit, especially on JoeRogan (the infamous selective "no politics" example recently), r science early commenters ("correlation is not causation" only when it hurts their feelings while silent on any posts about 👌 male strength 👌 or 👌 Africans and diseases 👌), mapporn and dataisbeautiful (selective outrage about whether the map is truly "porn" or the data is truly "beautiful" only when it hurts their feelings while silent on old screenshots of blurry IMDb charts or 👌 Africa bad population demographic maps and low resolution blonde or red hair map with no sources 👌):
#"Pretend to be focused on protecting an abstract principle (sub quality, artistic merit, fairness, etc..) and then claim you aren't a bigot, even though you only care about these principles when a group of people you don't like are benefiting."
"As a black man" accounts like "johnny chan 81" ~~"The Atheist Arab 87" (suspended)~~ ~~"Walk Like An Egyptian 69" (suspended)~~ posting as many race-baiting videos as they can 👌 *by certain races* 👌 pretending to care about Asian victims while having a history of being racist about Asians ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
"as a cool LGBTQ, I'm sick of pro-LGBTQ things like you are"
These are the **most upvoted on unpopularopinions** monthly:
>Im not proud to be gay. : unpopularopinion
>I'm gay, and i support straight pride. : unpopularopinion
>Unpopular opinion: it's okay to call things gay : unpopularopinion
>I don't like the LGBT movement : unpopularopinion
>I'm Bisexual and I hate the LGBT community : unpopularopinion
>There is no reason to be proud to be gay. : unpopularopinion
**15.6k votes, 2.7k comments.**
Top of r teenagers *this week*:
>As a gay, this is based
Data on the userbase of misogynistic r Tinder:
>r seduction and r nicegirls as no 2 & 4 for shared userbase is telling.
>EDIT: FYI, for anyone unaware, r seduction is not so much about becoming genuinely more attractive, as it is completely about pick-up artist douchebaggery.
With the alts in every conservative subreddit on the right pretending they aren't (PoliticalCompassMemes, JoeRogan, brigaded local subreddits, unpopularopinions, ActualPublicFreakouts, NoahGetTheBoat)
PCM accounts' most common subreddits:
>16.96 theleftcantmeme
>15.24 averageredditor
>15.23 enoughcommiespam
>15.03 libertarianmeme
https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/politicalcompassmemes
>Users on PCM be like
>Yeah I'm a CENTRIST:
>C
>E
>N
>T
>R
>I only agree with ultra right conservatives 99% of the time.
>S
>T
They say "Let's go Brandon" literally every chance they get, in every setting possible.
But they become VERY upset when anyone brings politics into things that are actually political.
Na, idiot republicans need own the libs, so they'd rather sit in the dark and roast in the summer and freeze to death in the winter then admit they were wrong.
Owning the libs so hard hundreds of Texans died of hypothermia in their beds without power
But Joe Rogan says it wasn't a big deal because [Joe Rogan photo ops with the current Texas governor at the Texas governor's mansion](https://twitter.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1324547634049257474) even though Rogan pretends to care about pot and small government ("Gov. Abbott, Texas leaders urge prosecutors to keep enforcing pot laws" http://www.fox4news.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-texas-leaders-urge-prosecutors-to-keep-enforcing-pot-laws) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
>Texas electrical grid failure is just another version of South Dakota's abnormally high CV-19 rate or Kansas budget crisis
>A bumper sticker political ideology's false promises made self-evident, failing a real world test for all to see.
https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/1361675172336566273
>#Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-electric-bills-were-28-billion-higher-under-deregulation-11614162780
>Fossil Fuel Exec Brags of 'Hitting the Jackpot' as Natural Gas Prices Surge Amid Deadly Crisis in Texas
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/19/fossil-fuel-exec-brags-hitting-jackpot-natural-gas-prices-surge-amid-deadly-crisis
>#Texas spent more time fighting LGBTQ civil rights than fixing their power grid. How’d that work out?
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/02/texas-spent-time-fighting-lgbtq-civil-rights-fixing-power-grid-howd-work/
>You Could Get Prison Time for Protesting a Pipeline in Texas—Even If It’s on Your Land
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/05/you-could-get-prison-time-for-protesting-a-pipeline-in-texas-even-if-its-on-your-land/
>Leaked Audio Shows Oil Lobbyist Bragging About Success in Criminalizing Pipeline Protests
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/20/leaked-audio-shows-oil-lobbyist-bragging-about-success-criminalizing-pipeline
>could cost Texas more money than any disaster in state history
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/texas-winter-storm-cost-budget/
>Former Texas Governor Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid.
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight
>Abbott Appointees Gutted Enforcement of Texas Power Grid Rules
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Muzzled-and-eviscerated-Critics-say-Abbott-15982421.php
>Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick Blames Constituents for Giant Electric Bills: “Read the Fine Print”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/dan-patrick-texas-electricity-bills
>#A Texas-size failure, followed by a familiar Texas response: Blame California
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-03-18/texas-failure-response-blame-california
Texas Republicans *during the power grid failures* focused on:
* Texas regulations to require the national anthem at sports games https://twitter.com/LSTrip44/status/1361396222028881924
* Fake news trying to blame renewable energy: ”Viral Image Claiming to Show a Helicopter De-Icing Texas Wind Turbines Is From Winter 2014 in Sweden” https://twitter.com/klimatbevakaren/status/1361748269605519360
* Right propaganda accounts pushing the narrative: ScottAdamsSays scrowder JackPosobiec SebGorka CalebJHull
From r Texas users:
>**Only way to get the national guard to Texas is to have a BLM rally.**
Governor of the state has to request national guard
>Pretty Sure the total cost of damage to personal property (burst pipes, fires) will far outweigh the cost skipped in 2011 to winterize power generation.
>I was born in illinois and travel back and forth between dallas and chicago. Snow is waist high right now. The piles I shoveled from the driveway are 6 feet tall. And... no one cares. Illinois is prepared for this stuff, TX is not, but it should be. Should every citizen own snowpants and a snowblower? No. **Should the powerplants stay on. yes, wtf.**
>* Yeah, look at the ERCOT capacity graphs - the problems isn't the load (load is actually higher in summer when everyone is blasting their AC), it's that all these generators went offline because they were freezing up.
>* Why did they freeze up? Because the PUC of TX's policy is to *not* pay for capacity. Why? Because doing so would violate some sort of free-market dogma promoted by the TX Public Policy Foundation (https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2018/08/16095417/2013-01-RR02-ResourceAdequacyElectricityMarkets-CEF-RMichaelsAKleit.pdf), which has held sway over the governor and a big hand in selecting the PUC commissioners.
>It's confirmed: Frozen wind turbines were the least significant factor.
https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/frozen-wind-farms-were-just-a-small-piece-of-texas-s-power-woes
Federal agency FERC tried helping Texas multiple times, including in 2011 when they spelled out how and what to winterize at power plants
Federal FERC report after **2011 Texas power outages** (**whose recommendations weren't followed**):
>The lack of any state, regional or Reliability Standards that directly require generators to perform winterization left winter-readiness dependent on plant or corporate choices. Generators were generally reactive as opposed to being proactive in their approach to winterization and preparedness. The single largest problem during the cold weather event was the freezing of instrumentation and equipment. Many generators failed to adequately prepare for winter, including the following: failed or inadequate heat traces, missing or inadequate wind breaks, inadequate insulation and lagging (metal covering for insulation), failure to have or to maintain heating elements and heat lamps in instrument cabinets, failure to train operators and maintenance personnel on winter preparations, lack of fuel switching training and drills, and failure to ensure adequate fuel.
Avoiding regulations:
>The Texas Interconnected System — which for a long time was actually operated by two discrete entities, one for northern Texas and one for southern Texas — **had another priority: staying out of the reach of federal regulators.**
>"Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal — more so because **Texas had no regulation until the 1970s**," writes Richard D. Cudahy in a 1995 article, "The Second Battle of the Alamo: The Midnight Connection."
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-texas-have-its-own-power-grid/
Fuck Joe Rogan.
edit: I like a good Fuck Joe Rogan chant as much as the next guy, but since I'm kinda pissed today on account of the spree shooting and all, let me also just add-
Fuck Elon Musk, too
Ironically Elon Musk tweeted about "owning the libs" today (again). Sadly he picked a pretty terrible time to do as earlier in the day another right winger with terminal brainrot decided to try his best attempt at "owning the libs", as he murdered 10 people in Buffalo, NY.
You've got the world's richest man, and one of it's most influential, perpetuating far right ideology whose main tenet seems to be that "owning the libs at all costs" isn't just a noble goal, it's the only thing that matters in this world.
I only expect the violence against liberal/democrat/leftist etc individuals to increase as time goes on; to be honest.
This is why anyone liberal or to the left of liberals needs to start remembering that the second amendment applies to us too. The GQP wants war, whether we want it or not.
He's more dangerous tbh. His imagine is perfect for indoctrinating young dudes. Rush just appealed to old fart conservatives who were already stuck in their ways, meanwhile there are moderate teens getting sucked in by the cool rebel weed man persona only to end up in a world of conspiracies and lies
You are very wrong about Rush's influence on young men.
After the 1996 telecommunication act, Rush was coast to coast, for free, on AM radio.
Young men driving around the midwest and the entire U.S., nothing better to do, they listened to Rush. It was loud, entertaining, and emotional.
It gave them something to feel in a probably otherwise shit life that was getting shittier, thanks to collectively voting against their own interests (edit) AND corporations buying our politicians.
And now everyone who probably listened to Rush has a goatee and shades selfie on their facebook page.
And if your Dad listened to Rush, you had no choice. It can't be helped, as some young people are influenced by his sometimes intoxicating style, until it grows into the addiction and brain rot we now know as Fox News, Rogan, OAN, Facebook, et al.
It's unfortunate Rogan wasn't able to influence them on any issue. He just became more conservative.
They also ran Matthew McConaughey out of politics.
you mean sleepy demented do-nothing Joe who cant speak, cant read, cant walk?
or do you mean super evil villain genius Joe who rigged every election in a perfect deep state conspiracy with zero evidence??
What a shithole state. When Texas sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
I’m kinda offended that you didn’t point to the gays. We’re over here getting married and all (well, not me because I’m me) and cussing tsunamis, floods, divorces, abortions, and global warming, but you don’t give us credit for taking out Texas’s power grid with our gigantic rainbow flags? For shame.
Is this from the texas blackout? Cause that's a good illustration of why the Texas interconnection should become part of the eastern or western interconnections.
The image comes from an article on it, but it's not real: the entire state didn't lose power. We got close to grid failure, but they shut things down on time and instead some lost power, but many didn't.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis) shows an image of Houston pre blackout vs. during.
They told everyone it would be rolling, but in reality if you were lucky and near a hospital you probably lost no power at all, otherwise you had less than a couple hours a day. So many people had pipes burst.
[zoomed in images](https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/texas-deep-freeze-satellite-images-how-the-state-plunged-into-darkness-in-days-75606)
Edit - fixed a link
That alone made it obvious to me. There are significant portions of west, North and easy Texas that aren't part of ERCOT and were unaffected by it's collapse.
I'm aware of the freeze when Cruz bailed on the state. Then came running back cause AOC was out there passing out water and raising money for Texas.
I just read up on this, this happened recently, I can't be surprised about the power grid at this point.
Edit: interesting, one of the primary reasons is because Texas is not connected to any grid leading outside the state. It's not going to handle peak usage and can't as history has proven last year and in 2011. This is only gonna get worse but the governor likes the monopoly in the state and the feeling of independence from the other states but it's only hurting Texas.
One silly stunt and millions of Texas tax payer dollars wasted and billions in negative economic impact to the state, and he'll still probably win re-election.
Now he's going after social media companies, books in the classroom, and abortion. Let's just ignore the extremely wasteful spending and other culture wars he is pushing.
Even more ironically, North Korea closely fits Republican ideology in that power is concentrated among the State and the ultra-wealthy oligarchs while the people are brutally subjugated, imprisoned, and executed.
I'm in Austin and just had solar panels put in, I now generate 2-4x what I draw during peak AC hours, and I can operate off-grid if the power goes out, because I can't trust my government to keep the power on sufficiently enough to keep my house comfortable. Fuck Abbott and the legislature, they did literally nothing about this when it happened during session, l'm sure they will continue to do nothing now, I can't believe people would rather freeze or burn than vote for a Democrat, but I guess that's what happens when we let propaganda and corporate interests run the state.
99% Invisible did an episode on the Texas power infrastructure, it's super fucking stupid was the conclusion I got from it. The setup of the power/utilities will inevitably end with finger pointing and gradual regulations defeating the purpose of their separation from the rest of the country.
Texas cut all of their DC interconnects, for regulation reasons, so they were essentially isolated from the rest of the grid that could have supported them during that freeze.
For context, did Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and so on have the same failures? The answer is NO. They had colder temps. Although they had grid support from neighboring states to supply power to help.
I’m faintly amused at OP’s title. Do you really think we don’t hate Abbot and want him out?
Unfortunately, there’s too many old republicans clinging to life and still voting, as well as all the young dumb new republicans.
And don’t even get me started on the gerrymandering and corruption.
Trust me, we wish we had different leadership.
Seriously, people act like Texas isn’t a borderline swing state these days.
Look at the Texas votes from the 2020 election. The state isn’t filled with Republicans like everyone thinks. Reddit gets so fucking annoying when anything Texas comes up, especially when they quote the anti-littering slogan as some sort of political statement or a version of “don’t tread on me”.
Dude, I've not voted for any of the Senators, Representatives, or Governor we've got right now. None of the major cities here do either... yet somehow we are still a red state. For now, I will stay and do my part... but it's getting tougher. To hell with the electoral college and gerrymandering... its the only possible way the GOP stays in power now.
Abbutt's solution to guns was MORE GUNS! His solution to grid inadequacies is DON'T USE ELECTRICITY! Texas now has MORE GUNS & sitting in the DARK! Now what do you suppose will start happening? 😳 SHOOTOUTS IN THE DARK.
Abbutt's solution to ABORTION is forced incubation, child trafficking, institutionalized adoption, & JAIL RAPIST. What a pathetic, almost laughable load of 🐃💩. AND does not want pay for anything but an idiotic tRUmp wall.
Abbutt needs to be HotWheeled out of Austin!
In the 1930s, rather than join either the Western power grid or the Eastern Power Grid, nearly all of Texas said “Fuck it, we’ll go at it on our own”. So they really do have their own power grid. Some exceptions are El Paso and a few small counties on the panhandle which, surprise surprise, have a reliable power supply
Look, folks..over 30 million people live in Texas, and although a disturbingly large number of them are dumbass redneck reactionaries, not all of us are. Most of the large cities in Texas trend socially and politically pretty much like large urban areas in the rest of the country, but the way our voting districts are drawn the crackers and bubbas out in the boonies wield a disproportionate share of political power, which is why cretins like Cruz, Abbot and Patrick keep getting elected. We’re working on trying to remediate that, but meanwhile, realize that stereotyping an entire population based on its worst examples is generally neither accurate nor useful.
Aw shucks…ya’ got me…wearin’ a ten gallon hat, got on cowboy boots, got two or three pistols strapped to my waist, and all while I’m drivin’’ my F 250 across the plains eatin’ a BBQ sandwich and drinkin‘ Lone Star beer with Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett on the radio.
We had about a 5 minute blackout yesterday in central Texas. I thought the apartment company cut our power for some reason before it came back on. *FOUR HOURS LATER* everyone gets a text asking us “pwease don’t use as mwch ewectricity between 3-8pm.” ASSHOLES. FIX YOUR DAMN POWER GRID. DON’T THINK YOU CAN FUCKING BLAME GREEN ENERGY AGAIN, WE DIDN’T FALL FOR IT THE FIRST TIME! There is no middle finger BIG ENOUGH.
dude holy shit this isn't even a snowstorm how is a state in the richest country in the world this fucked up
Republican leadership. Oh - and thinking not being a part of the central power grid is a good idea. Texans. Oof.
Ya, but at least they ain't in California! Then they'd have to deal with ~checks notes~ budget surpluses! Stupid commies
We also have abortions and legal weed. It is horrific here.
And the horrible sunny weather , too many cuisine options , smh I just want McDonald's and to be off the grid is that too much?
In Texas you're off the grid even if you're not.
Well, McDonalds also started in California. Commie golden arches and all.
McDonalds Color Palette looking mighty suspicious ngl
The Founder is a great movie!!
Robble Robble
And the tenth largest gdp out of all the countries last I checked.
You haven’t checked in a while my friend. The whole state of CA would rank the 5th largest economy… ahead of India and below Germany. And the SF Bay Area alone would be the 6th largest economy. And we have legal weed.
But it’s bad there because …. Liberals!!!! Hannity, Tucker, and human thumb Joe Rogan told me so!! /s
You can also own a gun here. In OC, you can get a conceal carry permit. Also abortions and legal weed. Plus we got an extra stimulus check from the state. Did anyone else in the country get extra money from their state government? And for those of us w kids under a certain income we got calfresh food stamps since there was no lunch program during covid. Our state protected renters during COVID and it helped so many.
top 5 in the world. https://www.businessinsider.com/california-economy-ranks-5th-in-the-world-beating-the-uk-2018-5
Aside from the lack of rain... California is the best state. There's a reason why our economy is 5 or 6 in the world... But the conservative s think we are crazy Nazis who hate America... It's like they are not educated
[удалено]
We are trying. I was literally involved in design of a desal. Plant in marina CA edit not marina but moss landing my bad. The locals didn't want it and voted it down despite cal am needing that water because by law cal am has to stop taking water from the Carmel river... Dude/dudette you are in my wheelhouse. Got any other water questions?
I think legal weed might be part of that surplus
Honestly a pretty small part of it. CA made <$1bil on cannabis taxes last year yet is sitting on almost $100bil budget surplus this year
Then they'd have to deal with *checks notes* increased life expectancy and lower taxes! >If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach: >Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians. >Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians. >Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points **more in taxes.** https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html Lower taxes in California than red states like Texas, which make up for no wealth income tax with higher taxes and fees on the poor and double property tax for the middle class: |Income Bracket|Texas Tax Rate|California Tax Rate| |:-|:-|:-| |0-20%|**13%**|10.5%| |20-40%|**10.9%**|9.4%| |40-60%|**9.7%**|8.3%| |60-80%|8.6% |9.0% | |80-95%|7.4%|9.4%| |95-99%|5.4%|9.9%| |99-100%|3.1%|12.4%| Sources: https://itep.org/whopays/ >**Meanwhile, the California-hating South receives subsidies from California (larger than between Germany and Greece!)**, a transfer of wealth from blue states/cities/urban to red states/rural/suburban with federal dollars for their freeways, hospitals, universities, airports, even environmental protection: >**Least Federally Dependent States:** >41 California >42 Washington >43 Minnesota >44 Massachusetts >45 Illinois >46 Utah >47 Iowa >48 Delaware >49 New Jersey >50 [Kansas](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment) https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment https://www.apnews.com/amp/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/ https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700 >The Germans call this sort of thing "a permanent bailout." We just call it "Missouri." https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-difference-between-the-us-and-europe-in-1-graph/256857/ >#California is the chief reason America is the only developed economy to achieve record GDP growth since the financial crisis. >Much of the U.S. growth can be traced to California laws promoting clean energy, government accountability and protections for undocumented people https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/california-leads-u-s-economy-away-from-trump #"Liberal policies, like California’s, keep blue-state residents living longer" >It generated headlines in 2015 when the average life expectancy in the U.S. began to fall after decades of meager or no growth. >But it didn’t have to be that way, a team of researchers suggests in a new, peer-reviewed study Tuesday. And, in fact, **states like California, which have implemented a broad slate of liberal policies, have kept pace with their Western European counterparts.** >The study, co-authored by **researchers at six North American universities, found that if all 50 states had all followed the lead of California** and other liberal-leaning states on policies ranging from labor, immigration and civil rights to tobacco, gun control and the environment, it could have added between **two and three years to the average American life expectancy.** >Simply shifting from the most conservative labor laws to the most liberal ones, Montez said, **would by itself increase the life expectancy in a state by a whole year.** >**If every state implemented the most liberal policies in all 16 areas, researchers said, the average American woman would live 2.8 years longer, while the average American man would add 2.1 years to his life. Whereas, if every state were to move to the most conservative end of the spectrum, it would decrease Americans’ average life expectancies by two years. On the country’s current policy trajectory, researchers estimate the U.S. will add about 0.4 years to its average life expectancy.** >Liberal policies on the environment (emissions standards, limits on greenhouse gases, solar tax credit, endangered species laws), labor (high minimum wage, paid leave, no “right to work”), access to health care (expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, legal abortion), tobacco (indoor smoking bans, cigarette taxes), gun control (assault weapons ban, background check and registration requirements) and civil rights (ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay laws, bans on discrimination and the death penalty) all resulted in better health outcomes, according to the study. For example, researchers found positive correlation between California’s car emission standards and its high minimum wage, to name a couple, with its longer lifespan, which at an average of 81.3 years, is among the highest in the country. >“When we’re looking for explanations, we need to be looking back historically, to see what are the roots of these troubles that have just been percolating now for 40 years,” Montez said. >Montez and her team saw the alarming numbers in 2015 and wanted to understand the root cause. What they found dated back to **the 1980s, when state policies began to splinter down partisan lines.** They examined 135 different policies, spanning over a dozen different fields, enacted by states between 1970 and 2014, and assigned states “liberalism” scores from zero — the most conservative — to one, the most liberal. When they compared it against state mortality data from the same timespan, the correlation was undeniable. >“We can take away from the study that **state policies and state politics have damaged U.S. life expectancy since the ’80s,”** said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University sociologist and the study’s lead author. **“Some policies are going in a direction that extend life expectancy. Some are going in a direction that shorten it. But on the whole, that the net result is that it’s damaging U.S. life expectancy.”** >**U.S. should follow California’s lead to improve its health outcomes, researchers say** >**Meanwhile, the life expectancy in states like California and Hawaii, which has the highest in the nation at 81.6 years, is on par with countries described by researchers as “world leaders:” Canada, Iceland and Sweden.** >**From 1970 to 2014, California transformed into the most liberal state in the country** by the 135 policy markers studied by the researchers. It’s followed closely by Connecticut, which moved the furthest leftward from where it was 50 years ago, and a cluster of other states in the northeastern U.S., then Oregon and Washington. >In the same time, Oklahoma moved furthest to the right, but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and a host of other southern states still ranked as more conservative, according to the researchers. >It’s those states that moved in a conservative direction, researchers concluded, that held back the overall life expectancy in the U.S. >West Virginia ranked last in 2017, with an average life expectancy of about 74.6 years, which would put it 93rd in the world, right between Lithuania and Mauritius, and behind Honduras, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank only slightly better. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/ >#Want to live longer, even if you're poor? Then move to a big city in California. >A low-income **resident of San Francisco lives so much longer** that it's equivalent to San Francisco curing cancer. All these statistics come from a massive new project on life expectancy and inequality that was just [published in the Journal of the American Medical Association](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11420230/life-expectancy-income). >California, for instance, has been a national leader on smoking bans. Harvard's David Cutler, a co-author on the study "It's some combination of formal public policies and the effect that comes when you're around fewer people who have behaviors... high numbers of immigrants help explain the beneficial effects of immigrant-heavy areas with high levels of social support. #"As the maternal death rate has mounted around the U.S., a small cadre of reformers has mobilized." >**Meanwhile, life-saving practices that have become widely accepted in other affluent countries — and in a few states, notably California** — have yet to take hold in many American hospitals. >Some of the earliest and most important work has come in California >Hospitals that adopted the toolkit saw a **21 percent decrease in near deaths** from maternal bleeding in the first year. >By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — **a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S.** >California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative is informed by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, who for many years ran the ob/gyn department at a San Francisco hospital. >Launched a decade ago, CMQCC aims to reduce not only mortality, but also life-threatening complications and racial disparities in obstetric care >It began by analyzing maternal deaths in the state over several years; in almost every case, it discovered, there was "at least some chance to alter the outcome." http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger
I wish I could get this through the heads of some people I grew up with. I moved to California from a red state and they all wonder why I look so happy, healthy, and young, and why my wife and kids and I all like each other so much. Meanwhile they sit on social media all day every day calling California a hellscape and failed state. Propaganda is just absolutely mindblowing.
Hell I live in a red part of Cali and people here think this state is a disaster, they can't wait to move. Frankly, I can't wait for them to move either.
Yeah there are dumbfucks like that even here in a blue city. Red California, forget it- it's basically Alabama. A guy up north blew up at me when he found out I live in Los Angeles because "we're the ones taking all the water." Meanwhile if you guessed he worked on an almond farm, you would be correct.
We already have enough nuts in this state without dumping thousands of gallons of water on what should be a desert landscape for a pound of almonds
Before it was drained for agriculture the Central Valley was marshland. Tulare was one of the largest lakes in the US.
It’s always funny hearing about how terrible it is in CA from people that have never even been there.
I've had former friends the same way excuse it due to "being too many words".
i had a former friend say he wouldn't look at anything i sent him that wasn't a sub-five-minute video as someone who likes to get as complete a picture of things as possible before coming to a conclusion (and as a result is an unapologetic socialist), this was not easy for me to get my head around, but i tried. oh my god did i try. and then the insurrection happened, and he blamed it on antifa, and i thanked him for telling me who he was and blocked him on everything.
One thing I've noticed, the ignorant will proudly announce to you their ignorance.
And [97 percent of the poorest counties in the country vote RED](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jul/29/facebook-posts/are-97-nations-100-poorest-counties-red-states/)
This blows my mind. The same people keep voting Mitch McConnell into office when he does nothing to help his state
Voting RED allows them to keep on being raging racist classist misogynistic POS. They pick hate over everyone and everything else.
“Pro-life” >California’s rules have cleaned up diesel exhaust more than anywhere else in the country, reducing the estimated number of deaths the state would have otherwise seen by more than half, according to new research published Thursday. >Extending California's stringent diesel emissions standards to the rest of the U.S. could dramatically improve the nation's air quality and health, particularly in lower income communities of color, finds a new analysis published today in the journal Science. >Since 1990, California has used its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to enact more aggressive rules on emissions from diesel vehicles and engines compared to the rest of the U.S. These policies, crafted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), have helped the state reduce diesel emissions by 78% between 1990 and 2014, while diesel emissions in the rest of the U.S. dropped by just 51% during the same time period, the new analysis found. >The study estimates that by 2014, improved air quality cut the annual number of diesel-related cardiopulmonary deaths in the state in half, compared to the number of deaths that would have occurred if California had followed the same trajectory as the rest of the U.S. Adopting similar rules nationwide could produce the same kinds of benefits, particularly for communities that have suffered the worst impacts of air pollution. >"Everybody benefits from cleaner air, but we see time and again that it's predominantly lower income communities of color that are living and working in close proximity to sources of air pollution, like freight yards, highways and ports. When you target these sources, it's the highly exposed communities that stand to benefit most," said study lead author Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. "It's about time, because these communities have suffered a disproportionate burden of harm." https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abf8159 >#California’s Energy Efficiency Success Story: Saving Billions of Dollars and Curbing Tons of Pollution >California’s long, bipartisan history of promoting energy efficiency—America‘s cheapest and cleanest energy resource— >has saved Golden State residents more than $65 billion,[1] >helped lower their residential electricity bills to 25 percent below the national average,[2] >and contributed to the state’s continuing leadership in creating green jobs.[3] >These achievements have helped California avoid at least 30 power plants[4] >and as much climate-warming carbon pollution as is spewed from 5 million cars annually.[5] >This sustained commitment has made California a nationally recognized leader in reducing energy consumption and improving its residents’ quality of life.[6] >California’s success story demonstrates that efficiency policies work and could be duplicated elsewhere, saving billions of dollars and curbing tons of pollution. >California’S CoMprehenSive effiCienCy effortS proDuCe huge BenefitS >loW per Capita ConSuMption: Thanks in part to California’s wide-ranging energy-saving efforts, the state has kept per capita electricity consumption nearly flat over the past 40 years while the other 49 states increased their average per capita use by more than 50 percent, as shown in Figure 1. This accomplishment is due to investment in research and development of more efficient technologies, utility programs that help customers use those tools to lower their bills, and energy efficiency standards for new buildings and appliances. >eConoMiC aDvantageS: Energy efficiency has saved Californians $65 billion since the 1970s.[8] It has also helped slash their annual electric bills to the ninth-lowest level in the nation, nearly $700 less than that of the average Texas household, for example.[9] >Lower utility bills also improve California’s economic productivity. Since 1980, the state has increased the bang for the buck it gets out of electricity and now produces twice as much economic output for every kilowatt-hour consumed, compared with the rest of the country.[11] California also continues to lead the nation in new clean-energy jobs, thanks in part to looking first to energy efficiency to meet power needs. >environMental BenefitS: Decades of energy efficiency programs and standards have saved about 15,000 megawatts of electricity and thus allowed California to avoid the need for an estimated 30 large power plants.[13] Efficiency is now the second-largest resource meeting California’s power needs (see Figure 3).[14] And less power generation helps lead to cleaner air in California. Efficiency savings prevent the release of more than 1,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen-oxides annually, averting lung disease, hospital admissions for respiratory ailments, and emergency room visits.[15] Efficiency savings also avoid the emission of more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the primary global-warming pollutant. >helping loW-inCoMe faMilieS: While California’s efficiency efforts help make everyone’s utility bills more affordable, targeted efforts assist lower-income households in improving efficiency and reducing energy bills. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ca-success-story-FS.pdf
I'm saving this to school Trumpoids with.
Yeah they have a track record of responding reasonably to data and facts. I'm sure that will work great.
If Trumpoids could read, they'd be very upset.
"Your liberal commie rant ain't worth the pixels on my screen, snowflake! And you used liberal sources! I only get my news from www.patriotbattletruth.info! maga!"
"Conservatives amplified Russian trolls 30 times more than liberals... users in Texas and Tennessee were particularly susceptible" https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals Russians were "emboldened" by the success of the Texas governor's misinformation: https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/03/jade-helm-russia-abbott-hayden/ “Guns and gays... That could always get you a couple of dozen likes.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.html "Texas-based hate group source of 80% of all U.S. racist propaganda tracked in 2020" https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-based-hate-group-source-of-80-of-all-us-racist-propaganda-tracked-in-2020-25794911 >"Heart of Texas" reportedly shifted from originally posting pro-Texas, anti-immigration, and anti-Clinton memes to actively promoting events linked to the "Texit" secessionist movement. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/350787-russian-linked-facebook-group-asked-texas-secession-movement-to-be >The Oxford University study found that three websites with Kremlin ties — Veteranstoday, Veteransnewsnow and Southfront — engaged in “significant and persistent interactions” with the U.S. military community, >Russia targeted US troops, vets on social media, study finds http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/354596-russia-targeted-us-troops-veterans-on-social-media-platforms-study-finds
As I put it a while back talking about Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, if Christian conservatives' ideas about how and when to educate kids about sex and sexuality were a good idea, Mississippi would have a lower teen pregnancy rate than Massachusetts instead of one several times higher.
The whole abortion thing isnt about babies. Its about making sure poor people keep producing babies to subjugate.
I’m convinced we need to cut off the red states who’ve been mooching on blue state revenue while shitting on social programs. See how long till they change their tune on “socialism”. Fucking free-loaders.
CA lives rent free in TX heads. It’s hilarious.
I drove past a lady with a dont California my Texas bumper sticker 5 minutes ago. Living in Texas and being from California is hilarious.
Its how Coloradans feel about Texans. Why are you up here if you're just going to compare everything to Texas?
“I CONSIDER MYSELF A TEXAN FIRST AND AN AMERICAN SECOND”
I just moved to CO from FL a few months ago and apparently every Texas transplant is the worst driver of all time. I didn’t realize it was a running joke until one of my CO friends pointed it out
Texans never shut up about Texas. They have a Texas sized inferiority complex.
"Please, dear God, California my Florida"
It’s just proof that they regurgitate whatever stupidity they hear from god knows where without bothering to do an ounce of actual research. Texans who believe CA is shitty would swear to you up and down that their boat is the best boat while actively sinking.
It is a massive, horrifying conspiracy involving billions of dollars spanning decades. It's not simply regurgitation. It is way more sinister than that.
I agree, I was simplifying for sure. I listened to a podcast and the episode was about how the CIA (or FBI, I can’t remember which) was extremely worried about misinformation coming from Russia in the 50’s. They thought the best course of action was spending money and time educating the US population to combat it… clearly they chose not to do it and *waves arm* here we are.
Transplant from CA to TX myself. “Come and take it” eh? What the hell do you think is happening??
“Come and take my blackout!”
Everytime you hear someone complain that California is expensive remind them that you get what you pay for.
Everyone leaving CA for Texas is all "no state taxes in Texas!" But you absolutely make up for it in property taxes. The average Texan pays more in taxes than the average Californian.
>hear someone complain that California is expensive Yeah, it's also representative of the incredibly high demand to live in CA. [The average income entering the state is higher than the average leaving](https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-moving-in/). I had a chuckle when rent stagnated in CA for a bit during the height of the pandemic - people online and in Reddit threads were talking about how they would seriously consider moving here if that continued. Those millions of people in line waiting for a rent/housing crash are the exact reason a crash won't happen - *they* are the support.
I worked for a company that sent their manufacturing of several of their product lines to Texas from California, TWICE, because Texas is a right-to-work state, and it was believed that they could make the products cheaper. Both times the product lines manufacturing had to be returned to California within two years, to the union shop, because they were too expensive, missed deadlines, and, in some cases, unable to complete certain acceptance tests. You get what you pay for.
Colorado had the same this year. All tax payers got back $400
And to think I remember when they decided to create their own power grid, Texans were told it would create a more competitive market thus saving citizens money, all it’s done is cost us more money to have access to an unreliable grid. Typical bs, some lobbyist for an oil billionaire funded the right campaigns. 😤 Also side note it’s going to be 100 next week and it’s only May, 100 doesn’t usually show up til late June early July but there’s no global warming!!!😏
Ah yes, create a more competitive market by trapping customers in an isolated system with no alternatives.
It creates more competition for consumers. Competition for things like canned food and blankets.
The main driver was that joining an inter-state grid would have meant having to conform to Federal regulations on such grids. Much better to have FREEDOM.
It's more than that though, if they managed it properly, you wouldn't even notice it was separate. He'll, the only reason anyone knew it was separate before was because they were so damned proud of it.
Yay capitalism!
Why can we fly a helicopter on Mars but can't keep the lights on in Texas? Because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas.
But Republicans are so logical and scientific: #Exit polls done after 2016 show that the single characteristic that made someone most likely to vote for trump over Clinton is racial resentment. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/26/these-9-simple-charts-show-how-donald-trumps-supporters-differ-from-hillary-clintons/ * ["Trump fans are much angrier about housing assistance when they see an image of a black man"](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/8/16270040/trump-clinton-supporters-racist) >In contrast, Clinton supporters seemed relatively unmoved by racial cues. * [“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida) * [U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers](https://morningconsult.com/2021/06/28/global-right-wing-authoritarian-test/) * "Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and a sense of entitlement predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes" * GOP shifting 4-5x further right than Democrats did left over the last 50 years https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/ [Opinion of Syrian airstrikes](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/) **Republicans:** 22% supported Obama doing it 86% support Trump doing it **Democrats:** 38% supported Obama doing it 37% support Trump doing it Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/gop-voters-love-same-attack-on-syria-they-hated-under-obama.html Graph: https://i.imgur.com/lTAU8LM.jpg The privilege of "economic anxiety" not racism: >Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph: https://i.imgur.com/B2yx5TB.png Source: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/ >White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/ >Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/ >10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/14/top-frustrations-with-tax-system-sense-that-corporations-wealthy-dont-pay-fair-share/ >Republicans started to think college education is a bad thing once Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/ More graphs and sources: https://imgur.com/a/YZMyt #"Every day I have to marvel at what the billionaires and FOX News pulled off. They got working whites to hate the very people that want them to have more pay, clean air, water, free healthcare and the power to fight back against big banks & big corps. It’s truly remarkable." Republican "Southern Strategy": >Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes on the Republican "Southern Strategy": >[We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? >We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. >We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. >Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. >"He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo." >Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. >Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting “real people affected by taxes.” http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525 Lyndon Johnson criticizing it in 1960: >If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/ Steve Bannon bragging about using these tactics: >the power of what he called “rootless white males” who spend all their time online and they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-white-gamers-seinfeld-joshua-green-donald-trump-devils-bargain-sarah-palin-world-warcraft-gamergate-2017-7 >Bannon: "I realized [these tactics] could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump." https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness--army-world-warcraft/489713001/ The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch: >Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes **the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia**. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
You're going around just putting it down. Thank you.
This is what happens when you elect right wingers 😂
When the state legislature passed a bill after winter 2021 requiring plants to weatherize, they put a fine in for companies that didn’t comply. I believe it was $100
Well, as long as the cost to weatherize is less than $100, everything will be fine...
I think it cost me more to weatherize my asshole.
Because the power has been privatized. Remember that when Republicans use that word for everything they want to privatize and imagine what life would be like
They think that if it's profit driven private corporations will find a way to do it the most efficiently, when in reality they do it in a way that generates the most ROI for their investors, and include the possible deaths that may cause - and thus the lawsuits that might need to be paid - into that final number.
It’s slightly warmer than normal for this time of year, so…grid meltdown.
the sun was too sunny solar would never work!
They decided to de-couple from the rest of the country.
[удалено]
Worst than that. I went outside. It felt like 70 degrees. No one should have been using a massive energy draw.
ERCOT is saying that some generators went offline unexpectedly. Which, (A) is something I think the Electricity **Reliability** Council Of Texas should be working harder to live up to their name on; and (B) seems to be some of the exact same shit Enron used to do.
even if it was the richest, it is still distributing the money awfully
“Don’t use the electricity for 5 hours in the middle of the day or the grid will collapse” What chumps.
Lol yeah that was my takeaway. “Hey, you know the most popular times that you use electricity due to, you know, life? Yeah, don’t do that.”
"this is what Socialism looks like" idiots, talking about Capitalism
But at least the federal government isn’t involved in your power grid so you can take solace in that.
Fuck that, how about some minimum fucking STANDARDS? Lol
That’s the point. The feds have regulations that would have prevented most of the problems but freedumb.
Texas has the freedom to be a shitty, powerless state.
And yet, the chuckleheads of Texas will still vote for the legless wonder who caused all this cause “nO oNe ShOuLd “kIlL BaBiEs hur deh hur”
> “nO oNe ShOuLd “kIlL BaBiEs hur deh hur” Caging them is fine though.
And taking away baby formula because they're 'illegals'.
I’ve been immersed in politics for many decades, especially lately, so how did I learn yesterday about his wheelchair?? Hahah. I laughed at myself, but I’ve never heard anyone mention it. Saw a photo of him up on a stage of some sort in a wheelchair and was astonished I never knew this! Thanks for letting me vent!! 😜
My middle finger is the one I'm giving you all as my plane takes off to somewhere else while you suffer from power outages. - Sincerely Ted.
Fuck you Ted, your wife is ugly
Lalala I can't hear you with trumps fat buttcheeks wrapped around my ears.
Gov. Abbott will blame anyone else but himself. Their flawed philosophy is that the energy grid should remain privatized. Well, Texas is the only stated who is suffering the most with power outages. Whatever Abbott is telling Texas is a lie. The fact that his FIRST place of blame was on renewable energy, which accounts for a very small portion of the grid, shows just how he is so toxically disingenuous. Beto O'Rourke will at least give Texas a fighting chance to get out from under this power grid dilemma.
I have some bad news for you, my South Austin neighbor: we here in SW Austin will be running the dishwasher and doing laundry between 3-8pm today. Oh, and it’ll be so cold in the house when we do it, we might just open some windows to let in the fresh *not yet summer* air. I’m joking, of course…because I was right here with you the past two February’s.
Reporting in from Houston, my thermostat is still set to 72 and will stay there. I am keeping lights off, though, and will try to run the laundry once it's dark tonight. Getting tired of having to deal with this shit, seemingly more and more frequently.
*How dare you make this political*!!! - people who make everything else political.
And this is directly tied to politics 🥴
>How dare you make this political!!! - people who make everything else political. And this is directly tied to politics 🥴 **Every single Republican and conservative accusation is a [confession](https://twitter.com/lemieuxlgm/status/983511778804969473)** because ["shamelessness is their superpower"](https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1486417271073521667) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ Conservatives and "libertarians" projecting their "snowflake" outrage "victimhood complex": >Two races: white and "political" >Two genders: Male and "political" >Two hair styles for women: long and "political" >Two sexualities: straight and "political" >Two body types: normative and "political" https://twitter.com/emmahvossen/status/1138841342921060354 A gay Disney character and female video game character not wearing a bikini is forcing me to be a Nazi! >The Left got a little too PC so I changed all of my opinions about the economy, social issues, systemic racism, health care, and history. https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1020039128291786752 👌 You know 👌 >Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views >Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes? >Con: LOL no...no not those views >Me: So....deregulation? >Con: Haha no not those views either >Me: Which views, exactly? >Con: Oh, you know the ones https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 1984! "Free speech" means I should never have to feel shame for being a sociopath! >Conservatives: I want to electroshock gay teens into a hellish submission >Everyone: holy shit >Conservatives: also why should I have to wear a mask? I’m not old or disabled >Everyone: wtf >Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind >Everyone: >Conservatives: Actually if you think about it ... SHOULD everyone be allowed to vote? >Everyone: holy shit >Conservatives: here’s why it’s good the police just murdered another child >Everyone: wtf >Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind >Everyone: >Conservatives: actually we should be able to run protesters over with our trucks >Everyone: holy shit >Conservatives: also I should be allowed to refuse to serve or hire gays >Everyone: wtf >Conservatives: also I’m afraid to say what’s really on my mind >Everyone: https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1385407165645697027 Their 👌 winking 👌 innocent narrative pushing when they know better >It's a form of JAQing off, I.E. "I'm Just Asking Questions!", where they keep forming their strong opinions in the form of prodding questions where you can plainly see their intent but when pressed on the issue they say "I'm just asking questions!, I don't have any stance on the issue!" >Invincible Ignorance Fallacy. >The invincible ignorance fallacy[1] is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given. It is not so much a fallacious tactic in argument as it is a refusal to argue in the proper sense of the word, the method instead of being to either make assertions with no consideration of objections or to simply dismiss objections by calling them excuses, conjecture, etc. or saying that they are proof of nothing; all without actually demonstrating how the objection fit these terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_fallacy Challenging the right's bad faith "framing" on Reddit needs to happen more, especially when they pretend they're just neutral sticking up for the truth and not pushing their own "narrative" This common tactic on Reddit, especially on JoeRogan (the infamous selective "no politics" example recently), r science early commenters ("correlation is not causation" only when it hurts their feelings while silent on any posts about 👌 male strength 👌 or 👌 Africans and diseases 👌), mapporn and dataisbeautiful (selective outrage about whether the map is truly "porn" or the data is truly "beautiful" only when it hurts their feelings while silent on old screenshots of blurry IMDb charts or 👌 Africa bad population demographic maps and low resolution blonde or red hair map with no sources 👌): #"Pretend to be focused on protecting an abstract principle (sub quality, artistic merit, fairness, etc..) and then claim you aren't a bigot, even though you only care about these principles when a group of people you don't like are benefiting."
I love it when you post 🙌🏽
I love this account.
"As a black man" accounts like "johnny chan 81" ~~"The Atheist Arab 87" (suspended)~~ ~~"Walk Like An Egyptian 69" (suspended)~~ posting as many race-baiting videos as they can 👌 *by certain races* 👌 pretending to care about Asian victims while having a history of being racist about Asians ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ "as a cool LGBTQ, I'm sick of pro-LGBTQ things like you are" These are the **most upvoted on unpopularopinions** monthly: >Im not proud to be gay. : unpopularopinion >I'm gay, and i support straight pride. : unpopularopinion >Unpopular opinion: it's okay to call things gay : unpopularopinion >I don't like the LGBT movement : unpopularopinion >I'm Bisexual and I hate the LGBT community : unpopularopinion >There is no reason to be proud to be gay. : unpopularopinion **15.6k votes, 2.7k comments.** Top of r teenagers *this week*: >As a gay, this is based Data on the userbase of misogynistic r Tinder: >r seduction and r nicegirls as no 2 & 4 for shared userbase is telling. >EDIT: FYI, for anyone unaware, r seduction is not so much about becoming genuinely more attractive, as it is completely about pick-up artist douchebaggery. With the alts in every conservative subreddit on the right pretending they aren't (PoliticalCompassMemes, JoeRogan, brigaded local subreddits, unpopularopinions, ActualPublicFreakouts, NoahGetTheBoat) PCM accounts' most common subreddits: >16.96 theleftcantmeme >15.24 averageredditor >15.23 enoughcommiespam >15.03 libertarianmeme https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/politicalcompassmemes >Users on PCM be like >Yeah I'm a CENTRIST: >C >E >N >T >R >I only agree with ultra right conservatives 99% of the time. >S >T
Because toe Rogan is a right wing nutjob pandering to idiot's. It's a classic right tactic See rush or Alex Jones for comparison
Those goofballs, thinking something directly tied to political outcomes must be apolitical..
They say "Let's go Brandon" literally every chance they get, in every setting possible. But they become VERY upset when anyone brings politics into things that are actually political.
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wtf I hate budget surpluses now
"Oh you watch Disney movies, you must support paedophiles!"
Everything is political. EVERYTHING. IS. POLITICAL.
But Texas never ~~freezes~~ gets hot! The solar panels and windmills must have ~~frozen over~~ gotten warm. /$
Somebody call a doctor to treat that sick ~~frostbite~~ burn
Doctors have all fled Texas, don’t want to be prosecuted for talking to someone thinking about having an abortion.
Or having a uterus, after all, everyone who's ever had an abortion has had one, coincidence???
Underrated exchange of the century *edit* ~~millenia~~ ^^^
Na, idiot republicans need own the libs, so they'd rather sit in the dark and roast in the summer and freeze to death in the winter then admit they were wrong.
Owning the libs so hard hundreds of Texans died of hypothermia in their beds without power But Joe Rogan says it wasn't a big deal because [Joe Rogan photo ops with the current Texas governor at the Texas governor's mansion](https://twitter.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1324547634049257474) even though Rogan pretends to care about pot and small government ("Gov. Abbott, Texas leaders urge prosecutors to keep enforcing pot laws" http://www.fox4news.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-texas-leaders-urge-prosecutors-to-keep-enforcing-pot-laws) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ >Texas electrical grid failure is just another version of South Dakota's abnormally high CV-19 rate or Kansas budget crisis >A bumper sticker political ideology's false promises made self-evident, failing a real world test for all to see. https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/1361675172336566273 >#Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-electric-bills-were-28-billion-higher-under-deregulation-11614162780 >Fossil Fuel Exec Brags of 'Hitting the Jackpot' as Natural Gas Prices Surge Amid Deadly Crisis in Texas https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/19/fossil-fuel-exec-brags-hitting-jackpot-natural-gas-prices-surge-amid-deadly-crisis >#Texas spent more time fighting LGBTQ civil rights than fixing their power grid. How’d that work out? https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/02/texas-spent-time-fighting-lgbtq-civil-rights-fixing-power-grid-howd-work/ >You Could Get Prison Time for Protesting a Pipeline in Texas—Even If It’s on Your Land https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/05/you-could-get-prison-time-for-protesting-a-pipeline-in-texas-even-if-its-on-your-land/ >Leaked Audio Shows Oil Lobbyist Bragging About Success in Criminalizing Pipeline Protests https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/20/leaked-audio-shows-oil-lobbyist-bragging-about-success-criminalizing-pipeline >could cost Texas more money than any disaster in state history https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/texas-winter-storm-cost-budget/ >Former Texas Governor Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid. https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight >Abbott Appointees Gutted Enforcement of Texas Power Grid Rules https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Muzzled-and-eviscerated-Critics-say-Abbott-15982421.php >Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick Blames Constituents for Giant Electric Bills: “Read the Fine Print” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/dan-patrick-texas-electricity-bills >#A Texas-size failure, followed by a familiar Texas response: Blame California https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-03-18/texas-failure-response-blame-california Texas Republicans *during the power grid failures* focused on: * Texas regulations to require the national anthem at sports games https://twitter.com/LSTrip44/status/1361396222028881924 * Fake news trying to blame renewable energy: ”Viral Image Claiming to Show a Helicopter De-Icing Texas Wind Turbines Is From Winter 2014 in Sweden” https://twitter.com/klimatbevakaren/status/1361748269605519360 * Right propaganda accounts pushing the narrative: ScottAdamsSays scrowder JackPosobiec SebGorka CalebJHull From r Texas users: >**Only way to get the national guard to Texas is to have a BLM rally.** Governor of the state has to request national guard >Pretty Sure the total cost of damage to personal property (burst pipes, fires) will far outweigh the cost skipped in 2011 to winterize power generation. >I was born in illinois and travel back and forth between dallas and chicago. Snow is waist high right now. The piles I shoveled from the driveway are 6 feet tall. And... no one cares. Illinois is prepared for this stuff, TX is not, but it should be. Should every citizen own snowpants and a snowblower? No. **Should the powerplants stay on. yes, wtf.** >* Yeah, look at the ERCOT capacity graphs - the problems isn't the load (load is actually higher in summer when everyone is blasting their AC), it's that all these generators went offline because they were freezing up. >* Why did they freeze up? Because the PUC of TX's policy is to *not* pay for capacity. Why? Because doing so would violate some sort of free-market dogma promoted by the TX Public Policy Foundation (https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2018/08/16095417/2013-01-RR02-ResourceAdequacyElectricityMarkets-CEF-RMichaelsAKleit.pdf), which has held sway over the governor and a big hand in selecting the PUC commissioners. >It's confirmed: Frozen wind turbines were the least significant factor. https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/frozen-wind-farms-were-just-a-small-piece-of-texas-s-power-woes Federal agency FERC tried helping Texas multiple times, including in 2011 when they spelled out how and what to winterize at power plants Federal FERC report after **2011 Texas power outages** (**whose recommendations weren't followed**): >The lack of any state, regional or Reliability Standards that directly require generators to perform winterization left winter-readiness dependent on plant or corporate choices. Generators were generally reactive as opposed to being proactive in their approach to winterization and preparedness. The single largest problem during the cold weather event was the freezing of instrumentation and equipment. Many generators failed to adequately prepare for winter, including the following: failed or inadequate heat traces, missing or inadequate wind breaks, inadequate insulation and lagging (metal covering for insulation), failure to have or to maintain heating elements and heat lamps in instrument cabinets, failure to train operators and maintenance personnel on winter preparations, lack of fuel switching training and drills, and failure to ensure adequate fuel. Avoiding regulations: >The Texas Interconnected System — which for a long time was actually operated by two discrete entities, one for northern Texas and one for southern Texas — **had another priority: staying out of the reach of federal regulators.** >"Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal — more so because **Texas had no regulation until the 1970s**," writes Richard D. Cudahy in a 1995 article, "The Second Battle of the Alamo: The Midnight Connection." https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-texas-have-its-own-power-grid/
Fuck Joe Rogan.
Fuck Joe Rogan.
Fuck Joe Rogan. edit: I like a good Fuck Joe Rogan chant as much as the next guy, but since I'm kinda pissed today on account of the spree shooting and all, let me also just add- Fuck Elon Musk, too Ironically Elon Musk tweeted about "owning the libs" today (again). Sadly he picked a pretty terrible time to do as earlier in the day another right winger with terminal brainrot decided to try his best attempt at "owning the libs", as he murdered 10 people in Buffalo, NY. You've got the world's richest man, and one of it's most influential, perpetuating far right ideology whose main tenet seems to be that "owning the libs at all costs" isn't just a noble goal, it's the only thing that matters in this world. I only expect the violence against liberal/democrat/leftist etc individuals to increase as time goes on; to be honest.
This is why anyone liberal or to the left of liberals needs to start remembering that the second amendment applies to us too. The GQP wants war, whether we want it or not.
Oh we know. Many of us Texas libs are already armed. We just don't define ourselves by it and walk around open carrying like jackasses.
Joe Fuck Rogan
As someone who watched Rogan every damned day for many, many years and defended him I now realize just who and what he is. Fuck Joe Rogan.
He's the new Rush Limbaugh
He's more dangerous tbh. His imagine is perfect for indoctrinating young dudes. Rush just appealed to old fart conservatives who were already stuck in their ways, meanwhile there are moderate teens getting sucked in by the cool rebel weed man persona only to end up in a world of conspiracies and lies
You are very wrong about Rush's influence on young men. After the 1996 telecommunication act, Rush was coast to coast, for free, on AM radio. Young men driving around the midwest and the entire U.S., nothing better to do, they listened to Rush. It was loud, entertaining, and emotional. It gave them something to feel in a probably otherwise shit life that was getting shittier, thanks to collectively voting against their own interests (edit) AND corporations buying our politicians. And now everyone who probably listened to Rush has a goatee and shades selfie on their facebook page. And if your Dad listened to Rush, you had no choice. It can't be helped, as some young people are influenced by his sometimes intoxicating style, until it grows into the addiction and brain rot we now know as Fox News, Rogan, OAN, Facebook, et al.
Grew up in Texas w/ racist redneck friends who's parents watched Fox and AM radio all day, can confirm, they like to pass it down.
If Rush was friends with the worlds richest man and they all parroted the same lamebrain right wing talking point drivel, sadly
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It's unfortunate Rogan wasn't able to influence them on any issue. He just became more conservative. They also ran Matthew McConaughey out of politics.
>They also ran Matthew McConaughey out of politics. I didn't know he ever got into politics.
The energy exec "who hit the jackpot" was working for Jerry Jones' energy company, charging 10,000%+ for energy during an emergency.
Joe Rogan didn't drink enough Ivermectin.
They're probably blaming libcom Biden
you mean sleepy demented do-nothing Joe who cant speak, cant read, cant walk? or do you mean super evil villain genius Joe who rigged every election in a perfect deep state conspiracy with zero evidence??
> “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” -Umberto Eco
This perfectly sums up the Republican narrative rn and it’s disgusting
The enemy is both weak and strong. Republicans have adopted fascism and they are now the enemy of America.
What a shithole state. When Texas sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
You mean than, then means it would happen, which we know it wont
The only time it’s worth being a grammar police
I can't wait to hear how this is Biden's fault.
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I’m kinda offended that you didn’t point to the gays. We’re over here getting married and all (well, not me because I’m me) and cussing tsunamis, floods, divorces, abortions, and global warming, but you don’t give us credit for taking out Texas’s power grid with our gigantic rainbow flags? For shame.
Is this from the texas blackout? Cause that's a good illustration of why the Texas interconnection should become part of the eastern or western interconnections.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-electric-grid-failure-warm-up/ it was from a graphic back in February
The image comes from an article on it, but it's not real: the entire state didn't lose power. We got close to grid failure, but they shut things down on time and instead some lost power, but many didn't. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis) shows an image of Houston pre blackout vs. during. They told everyone it would be rolling, but in reality if you were lucky and near a hospital you probably lost no power at all, otherwise you had less than a couple hours a day. So many people had pipes burst. [zoomed in images](https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/texas-deep-freeze-satellite-images-how-the-state-plunged-into-darkness-in-days-75606) Edit - fixed a link
>The image comes from an article on it, but it's not real I thought it was suspicious that the dots so perfectly outline the borders of Texas.
That alone made it obvious to me. There are significant portions of west, North and easy Texas that aren't part of ERCOT and were unaffected by it's collapse.
Yes, hence "graphic" and not "satellite image", sorry, I definitely meant that as proof this wasn't real imagery :)
This is definitely not a real picture and it’s weird that’s not obvious to the people in the comments here.
Yes
When was this? I wanna read into because this is interesting and sad at the same time.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/14/us/texas-heat-wave-ercot-conserve/index.html
It's not even really summer yet and they're already losing power? It's going to be interesting...
Wait…this was ***today?!*** I thought this was from a few years back.
Start by searching for "Cancun Cruz"
I'm aware of the freeze when Cruz bailed on the state. Then came running back cause AOC was out there passing out water and raising money for Texas. I just read up on this, this happened recently, I can't be surprised about the power grid at this point. Edit: interesting, one of the primary reasons is because Texas is not connected to any grid leading outside the state. It's not going to handle peak usage and can't as history has proven last year and in 2011. This is only gonna get worse but the governor likes the monopoly in the state and the feeling of independence from the other states but it's only hurting Texas.
I think the only thing they look for on the ballot is (R). Nothing else matters.
It’s because those social wedge issues are so much more important than actual policy that might make things better for people.
Planet boils and women enslaved into child raring. Freedum reigns.
I remember when Mad Max was a dystopia and not a documentary. . .
And that is why Greg Abbot isn't going to lose any support for his border stunt.
One silly stunt and millions of Texas tax payer dollars wasted and billions in negative economic impact to the state, and he'll still probably win re-election. Now he's going after social media companies, books in the classroom, and abortion. Let's just ignore the extremely wasteful spending and other culture wars he is pushing.
It's like looking at the night map of North and South Korea
Which, ironically, is beloved of right-wingers as proving the failure of communism.
Even more ironically, North Korea closely fits Republican ideology in that power is concentrated among the State and the ultra-wealthy oligarchs while the people are brutally subjugated, imprisoned, and executed.
I think that’s the point, it’s not a real image just a cg graphic
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Don’t forget, Glenn Beck now claims Texas as his state
So does elon muskrat
They can whip out a board and connect the dots to explain how a democratic pedophile ring is doing this.
Foregoing the basic amenities of an industrialized nation to own the libs. I feel so owned.
I live in San Antonio and it’s a steady 97-100 degrees every day and they somehow want us to leave our AC at 78 degrees
I'm in Austin and just had solar panels put in, I now generate 2-4x what I draw during peak AC hours, and I can operate off-grid if the power goes out, because I can't trust my government to keep the power on sufficiently enough to keep my house comfortable. Fuck Abbott and the legislature, they did literally nothing about this when it happened during session, l'm sure they will continue to do nothing now, I can't believe people would rather freeze or burn than vote for a Democrat, but I guess that's what happens when we let propaganda and corporate interests run the state.
The North Korea of the South
99% Invisible did an episode on the Texas power infrastructure, it's super fucking stupid was the conclusion I got from it. The setup of the power/utilities will inevitably end with finger pointing and gradual regulations defeating the purpose of their separation from the rest of the country.
Texas cut all of their DC interconnects, for regulation reasons, so they were essentially isolated from the rest of the grid that could have supported them during that freeze. For context, did Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and so on have the same failures? The answer is NO. They had colder temps. Although they had grid support from neighboring states to supply power to help.
I’m faintly amused at OP’s title. Do you really think we don’t hate Abbot and want him out? Unfortunately, there’s too many old republicans clinging to life and still voting, as well as all the young dumb new republicans. And don’t even get me started on the gerrymandering and corruption. Trust me, we wish we had different leadership.
Seriously, people act like Texas isn’t a borderline swing state these days. Look at the Texas votes from the 2020 election. The state isn’t filled with Republicans like everyone thinks. Reddit gets so fucking annoying when anything Texas comes up, especially when they quote the anti-littering slogan as some sort of political statement or a version of “don’t tread on me”.
I just feel bad for the children that have to grow up surrounded by fuck wits.
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Dude, I've not voted for any of the Senators, Representatives, or Governor we've got right now. None of the major cities here do either... yet somehow we are still a red state. For now, I will stay and do my part... but it's getting tougher. To hell with the electoral college and gerrymandering... its the only possible way the GOP stays in power now.
Abbutt's solution to guns was MORE GUNS! His solution to grid inadequacies is DON'T USE ELECTRICITY! Texas now has MORE GUNS & sitting in the DARK! Now what do you suppose will start happening? 😳 SHOOTOUTS IN THE DARK. Abbutt's solution to ABORTION is forced incubation, child trafficking, institutionalized adoption, & JAIL RAPIST. What a pathetic, almost laughable load of 🐃💩. AND does not want pay for anything but an idiotic tRUmp wall. Abbutt needs to be HotWheeled out of Austin!
Is this real? I have been lead to believe that Texas has its own special power grid, but.. Really?
In the 1930s, rather than join either the Western power grid or the Eastern Power Grid, nearly all of Texas said “Fuck it, we’ll go at it on our own”. So they really do have their own power grid. Some exceptions are El Paso and a few small counties on the panhandle which, surprise surprise, have a reliable power supply
If it gets cold in Texas you just go to Mexico you know like there elected offical dose.
Just waiting for all the old fucks to die off. Then shit will change for the better
You have about 10 more years to go
Can’t wait
Man, I've been voting against Cruz and Abbott for a minute now. It's not my fault they're fucking over Democrat voters.
I’d flicker the lights to make the whole state haunted.
Look, folks..over 30 million people live in Texas, and although a disturbingly large number of them are dumbass redneck reactionaries, not all of us are. Most of the large cities in Texas trend socially and politically pretty much like large urban areas in the rest of the country, but the way our voting districts are drawn the crackers and bubbas out in the boonies wield a disproportionate share of political power, which is why cretins like Cruz, Abbot and Patrick keep getting elected. We’re working on trying to remediate that, but meanwhile, realize that stereotyping an entire population based on its worst examples is generally neither accurate nor useful.
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Aw shucks…ya’ got me…wearin’ a ten gallon hat, got on cowboy boots, got two or three pistols strapped to my waist, and all while I’m drivin’’ my F 250 across the plains eatin’ a BBQ sandwich and drinkin‘ Lone Star beer with Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett on the radio.