Texas anti-government zealots deregulated electric utilities and turned this critical public service over to a merry band of privateers. They ignored warnings from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and from the weather in 1989 and 2011. Their incompetence and greed just caused the most costly disaster in Texas history.
Anti-government zealot Gov. Greg Abbott immediately went on Fox News to blame windmills (no joke). Then the government-hating governor, to steal a term from the late, great Texas reporter Molly Ivins, begged the federal government for billions of dollars to clean up the deregulation disaster.
The Guv decided he didn’t want the federal government meddling in the healthcare business. Texas is before the U.S. Supreme Court trying to kill the Affordable Care Act and deprive more than 20 million people of health insurance.
The Guv decided Texas needed to intervene in other states’ electoral processes and overturn the results of the presidential election. This contributed to the rabid mob’s Jan. 6 failed attempt to overthrow the federal government.
Abbott ignores urgent warnings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and says wearing masks and other COVID-19 restrictions should be lifted 100% because “people and business don’t need the state telling them how to operate.”
According to the March 3 Texas Tribune:
Less than 7% of Texas’ population was fully vaccinated.
More than 71,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the previous 14 days. More than 5,600 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on March 2. Nearly 43,000 Texas who tested positive for the virus had died. New variants of the virus have appeared in Texas, with Houston being the first city in the nation to record all major COVID-19 strains.
Golly, Opie. With Governor Abbott’s kind of leadership, what could possibly go wrong?
Ed Chaney, Laguna Vista
