40 Comments

"What's he supposed to do?" He should have done the bare minimum.

AOC, radical liberal NY congresswoman raised $1m in 24 hours for Texas emergency relief.

Beto O'Rourke, former congressman, organized 150,000 welfare checks on Texas seniors.

President Biden sent emergency funds without delay, even though he should have demanded Texas rescind voting on succession to be eligible for aid.

The entire country is doing more for Texas than Sen Cruz or Gov Abbott.

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Yes! There are so many options Cruz could’ve taken...if he cared

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Perhaps he's turned into one of those "wealthy coastal elites" he likes to rail against. Heidi was inviting their friends to escape to the Ritz where the rooms were down to only $309 a night!

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but we know repugs don't care about anything other than themselves, photo ops, and dogging dems.

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Amen.. when you can't do something, about something, you punt.. You find something to do out of the usual. Kudos to AOC, she was fundraising for a state that wouldn't give her/her politics the time of day if needed. Yet there she was... What say you "red state Texas'?

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Didn't you know? That fundraising was just a cynical attempt to escape the blame she shares with the Green New Deal for the Texas situation. 🙄

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C’mon man, spell check and word usage isn’t hard. “Secession” is a lot different meaning word than “succession”.

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Yet you knew what s/he was saying.

My smartphone's auto correct option is set to suggest only and yet it'll occasionally change my entry.

Lighten up.

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Speaking of "secession" where is Allen West the GOP chair who was calling for Texas to secede a couple weeks ago?

Is he in hiding with his pal Ali Alexander?

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I’m old enough to remember when Cokie Roberts was pearl-clutching the optics of President Obama vacationing in foreign-looking Hawaii on ABC’s This Week.

“I know Hawaii is a state, but …”

Our failed political press has been the optics police for decades.

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Oh right! gosh that was weird

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Al Franken left the Senate because of a "controversial" photo taken many years before he ever ran for office when he was employed as a comedian. The intent of the photo was to be funny. Of course that's debatable and I'm not defending Al for a tasteless photo but he was ushered out of the Senate almost immediately by his own party because of the optics. But somehow the rules for Republicans are always different. Cruz said he left for Cancun because his daughter wanted to take a vacation and he was being a good dad. A good dad? Right, it's being a good dad to use his daughter as a shield for his complete lack of empathy and incompetence. Maybe the Republican spin machine can make him Father of the Year while they're at it.

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Lou--I blame Gillibrand and Schumer for losing one of the stronger voices in the Senate, Al Franken. Gillibrand was positioning herself for a 2020 run, and jumped to the head of a line that should not have formed. As far as Gillibrand was concerned, she was very bland in a field of some very dynamic candidates. In the end she struggled to raise funds, in large part because Franken was pushed out without the due process that he deserved.

Schumer? The matter should have been referred by Schumer to the ethics committee, allowing the bandwagon to lose steam. But he acted like Schumer.

Franken is sorely missed.

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Well said Ed. Yes, we do tend to eat our own while the Republicans stick up for one another to a fault.

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Roger Stone had a great deal to do with the story that took down, Al Franken. It was done because of how Franken battered and beat, Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing. Did Trump know or ordered the taken down of Franken? Who the hell knows.

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Now the crazy Rs are accusing Nancy Pelosi of failure to call up the national guard on Jan. 6. Who believes this stuff? I love it when they get caught ie Cruz and turn themselves into pretzels trying to defend him. Living in a bubble/glass house? Pitiful.

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Who believes this stuff?

Republicans brainwashed by the GOP 24/7 BS Machine--Fox, OANN, Newsmax, Hate Radio, Right Wing Pulpit Pimps & Priests and Right Wing newspapers!

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Right. Anyone beyond that made up world? They already have the crazies. Bubble influencers par excellence. Am I missing something other than their persistent and blanket opposition to we libs?

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Don't forget that they love to save the Fetus, but once it's born it's YOYO Time!

YOYO = You're On Your Own!

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Love the fetus, hate the child. GOP belief system.

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And the spin goes on. The wheels of hypocrisy will never come to halt. It's cruel for the sake of being cruel. The weak don't survive is this Kenisian drama unfolding in front of us and damn them anyway, I'm a senator. Senators' lives matter.

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Seems it didn't matter to Rafael when it came to his poodle "Snowflake" who was left in that cold cold house...

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Re hypocrisy-the 2011 extreme cold exposed numerous, and fixable, problems with the Texas power grid. Fortunately for Texas that cold snap resulted only in blackouts, water shortages and extreme utility bills. (And critics accused ERCOT and power plants of manipulating the market, raising price caps the day before the outages occurred.)

But hey, we are go it alone folks from the great state of Texas, and we don't need your stinkin' regulation.

Maybe when we get past the media distraction of Cruz-gate (who cares?) journalists might get down to the real work of first naming and mourning the Texas dead, then publishing the solutions, and finally working past the next distraction and seeing the solutions applied.

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The Texas Tribune is already on it, I believe. https://www.texastribune.org/

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It's an interesting thing to ponder: those who are not republican or "conservative," which is a misnomer anyway, won't tolerate such hypocrisy. So it begs the question of whether republicans are just too hypocritical even to care, simply don't care, or are stupid. I think the answer is ... yes.

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Remember nothing a right winger does is wrong ... ever. They stand for nothing today but lies, white supremacy, terrorism and fascism. Period. Nothing else. They are all hypocrites. Dems better get it together start their own types of tea parties now and go after these worthless wastes of humanity in all states and everywhere.

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Yep. Mark Kelly has to run again in 2022 in AZ. He was a place holder for right now. AZ is a hotbed of jackassery right now.They will pull out all the stops, legal or otherwise to put his seat in the GOP hands..

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Interesting that the ERCOT boss decided to tell the world that their colossal negligence could have been worse. It's like the owner of the bull expecting to be praised after telling the china shop owner that the one vase that didn't get broken looks pretty expensive. Texans are used to arrogant, self-absorbed, and incompetent politicians - they vote for them every year.

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Oh I agree, def some ERCOT spin involved

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I'll take issue with only one thing in this piece: "Mexico," an old song? James Taylor released it in 1975. I was out of college five years by then. Which seems like yesterday. You're making me feel, well, old! "What'll I do?," Irving Berlin's first published song, that's an old song.

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Ha! I feel same way abt “Mexico”.....

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Ditto Bob!

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While excusing Cruz because senators don’t really have any power, the right completely ignores the Herculean efforts of Beto and AOC raising money and volunteers to find and help the elderly and those living alone. They ignore the people on the ground feeding the hungry and organizing supplies. Ted Cruz is capable of all of the above but he doesn’t care and neither do his right wing apologists.

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Thanks Eric. The ERCOT President is named "Magness?" Surely it is spelled "Maganess."

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yep, it’s “Magness”

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Big tip on the video music. Billy is one of my favorite newer guitar pickers. And he has a lot of outstanding friends also.

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Yep, great stuff. That song is my first time hearing him

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How effortlessly the tune modulates and comes back home. Another good one, sir.

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Hmmmm ... this is excellent. Where is that Facebook button? <3

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on it! thanks

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