America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Corporate profit, electricity deregulation and the disaster in Texas
Corporate profit, electricity deregulation and the disaster in Texas
In a social disaster now entering its fourth day, as many as 4.5 million people have been hit by rolling blackouts or the complete shutoff of electricity in Texas. Millions have lost heat amidst winter storms that have sent temperatures plunging into single-digit Fahrenheit numbers (-13 C) as far south as Austin, the state capital. The blackout is the largest in US history caused by deliberate action of the power utilities.
Michelle Terrazas tosses a log of firewood as as people line up to load up Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
As of Wednesday, according to the misnamed Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the industry-dominated electricity distribution coordinator, 1.4 million people were without power in Houston, the state’s largest city, while one-fourth of residents in Dallas, the second-largest city, were similarly cut off. At least 21 deaths have been attributed to the combination of winter storms and power outages, with causes ranging from road accidents to house fires to people overcome by carbon monoxide.
The cause of the disaster is not any actual shortage in the production of electricity in the United States. On the contrary, the power supply is adequate and prices are comparatively stable. This social tragedy is the product of a series of decisions made by private corporations and public officials, all driven by a common concern: the maximization of capitalist profit.
Ten years ago, a mid-February deep freeze caused a power crisis in Texas. This prompted studies and multiple warnings of what might occur in the event of a similar or more far-reaching occurrence. The current crisis, occurring in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, is not a “natural” disaster, but the result of the deliberate and criminal refusal to heed those warnings.
A major factor is the decision of Texas state officials, adhering to Republican Party doctrine, to take no notice of climate change, despite a series of climate-induced disasters that have befallen the state—tornadoes, floods, droughts, wildfires. Above all, there was Hurricane Harvey, which spawned floods that devastated the Houston area in 2017, killing more than 100 people and causing damage estimated at $125 billion.
Climate change is believed to be a major contributor to the more frequent eruptions of the “polar vortex,” which bring bursts of super-cold air into regions where subzero temperatures have historically been rare.
But there are other political and economic decisions that underlie the current crisis. Texas operates a state-wide power grid that is disconnected from the major national grids that cover the remaining 47 states of the contiguous US. The state government has chosen this policy in order to evade the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees power grids that cross state lines. The lack of a connection to neighboring states means that when the Texas system experiences a crisis, it cannot easily draw on external power supplies.
Such a crisis developed Sunday night as a savage midwinter cold front swept into the state. Sub-freezing temperatures knocked out nearly half of the state’s energy generating capacity.
While Texas politicians have focused on the fall in wind and solar generation, down about four gigawatts (million kilowatts), by far the biggest drop came in conventional gas-driven generation, which lost more than 30 gigawatts because the temperatures made it more difficult to pump natural gas out of underground storage tanks. Cooling water at some nuclear power plants froze. Even antiquated coal-fired plants were forced to close, as coal supplies froze to the ground.
The deep freeze drove up energy demand to nearly 70 gigawatts, as Texans sought to heat their homes. But the supply problems cut available electricity to less than 45 gigawatts. Prices on the spot market, the only means through which Texas utilities could draw additional power, rocketed from $22 a megawatt hour to $9,000 on Monday.
ERCOT instructed utilities not to pay the exorbitant short-term rate—which would drastically cut into their profits since many customers are paying longer-term fixed rates—and to impose rolling blackouts instead.
The shutdown of power plants that caused the power shortage was itself the result of the drive for profit. There is no technical obstacle to weatherizing power plants, whether gas-driven, nuclear or based on renewable resources like the sun, wind and water. Such plants operate even in Siberia, Canada and Alaska.
But the deregulation of Texas utilities meant that it was entirely up to corporate executives to decide whether to make the investments required to protect their operations from cold snaps that have become increasingly common in the last two decades. They declined to make such deductions from profit.
Moreover, Texas officials decided in the mid-1990s that they would no longer require utilities to set aside a certain proportion of capacity as a reserve against surges in demand. Elsewhere in North America, such supply buffers are maintained at 15 percent or more. But Texas had no backup plants to activate when the crisis hit.
Once the shutdowns began, all the inequities and injustices of American capitalism in 2021 were spotlighted. Working class and minority Texans live in substandard housing, without insulation against unexpected cold and without adequate heating capacity.
Residents of Houston, the fourth largest US city, could see the lights still on in the city’s downtown corporate headquarters while they were freezing in the dark. Poor people on ventilators and those dependent on feeding tubes had nowhere to go but hospital emergency rooms.
Few can match the Texas ruling elite and its political servants for blatant class prejudice. The mayor of Colorado City, a small town in west Texas, had to resign after a social media rant in which he denounced residents who expected local government do anything about the crisis. “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout,” he declared. “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!” He continued with a tirade against “socialist government,” adding that the “strong will survive and the weak will [perish].”
This is not just the opinion of a backwoods reactionary. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who just concluded a four-year term in Washington as Trump’s secretary of energy, declared Wednesday, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” This millionaire ignoramus is more than willing to fight to the last freezing child to keep Texas utilities unregulated.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott found time amidst the crisis to appear on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News and blame the crisis on solar and wind energy, although he admitted that these account for only 10 percent of the state’s output.
The truth is that Texas is the number one producer of electrical power in the United States, with nearly twice as much as any other state. Any shortfall is entirely due to the criminal mismanagement by the corporate elite and its political front-men like Abbott and Perry.
Texas’ subordination of government policy to the interests of corporate profit and neglect of planning and infrastructure are not, however, the exception. They are rather a particularly stark expression of the rule in capitalist America. The same basic indifference and incompetence, driven by the same economic interests, has characterized the catastrophic official response to the COVID-19 pandemic, at the cost to date of half a million lives.
Nor does the installation of the Biden-Harris administration in Washington make a difference. The Democratic Party, like the Republicans, defends the capitalist system, including the production and distribution of energy based on private profit, not rational planning. Alongside the Republicans, the Democrats have overseen deregulation in order to boost the profits and personal fortunes of the corporate elite.
Only a socialist system, in which energy resources are nationalized as part of a planned economy, and organized to produce heat and light for all as a public service, offers a way forward for working people.
GRAPHIC EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Authorities Probe Alliance Between Cartels to Hold Turf near Texas
Authorities are investigating the inner workings of a new alliance between two of the most violent cartels in Mexico. Information exclusively confirmed to Breitbart Texas by top security officials suggests Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and La Linea are joining forces against the Sinaloa Cartel.
Breitbart Texas consulted top Mexican federal law enforcement sources who revealed meetings at the highest levels over concerns that an alliance was appearing to be forged. The allied goal is to stop the spread of factions from the Sinaloa Cartel as they make inroads in the border state of Chihuahua–putting La Linea’s interests near Texas at risk. Preliminary information does not yet specify if the alliance will lead to additional gunmen, weapons, or financial assistance from Jalisco. The turf war in Chihuahua has already led to more than 200 high-impact crimes since the beginning of 2021.
Chihuahua is home to Ciudad Juarez, a border city that once was known as the murder capital of the world after the long history of disputes between the Juarez Cartel (aka La Linea) and the Sinaloa Cartel. In a similar fashion, CJNG is currently considered the biggest rival to the Sinaloa Cartel as the two fight throughout Mexico for turf.
Last week, a fierce shootout between a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel known as Gente Nueva and La Linea led to a gory scene that sparked controversy after gunmen left three severed heads on an SUV. The Gente Nueva faction is currently led by Antonio Leonel “El 300” or “Bin Laden” Camacho Mendoza.
The shootout took place near Jimenez, leaving at least five dead gunmen, shot-up vehicles, and thousands of spent ammunition casings. Members of La Linea leaked video of a gunman severing the heads of fallen rivals while chanting the name of his organization.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas
Texas Towns Cope with Migrant Wave Not Tested for Coronavirus
President Joe Biden’s deputies are dropping many poor migrants with coronavirus into Americans’ neighborhoods, according to a report in the New York Times.
On February 23, the newspaper reported a statement about the drop-offs they say came from Juan “Trey” Mendez, the mayor of Brownsville:
“If it’s several hundred overnight, then that’s something that would become overwhelming for us,” said Mr. Mendez. “The administration is very well aware of that — we’ve conveyed that on numerous occasions.”
Elsewhere on the border, local officials are decrying the administration’s policy of dumping the poor migrants into Americans’ neighborhoods. CNN reported February 19:
… communities along the border in Texas have expressed concern about migrants being released during the pandemic. McAllen requested thousands of Covid-19 tests from state officials last month after learning migrants were not being tested by CBP.
“To drop them off at our bus station without testing them first? I think that’s irresponsible to not only the border but the whole United States,” said McAllen Mayor Jim Darling.
Biden’s deputies are encouraging the migrants to travel to the U.S. border so they can be released via a variety of legal covers. The covers include asylum applications, the 2015 Flores rule, or the 2008 law for supposedly unaccompanied minors.
Fortune 500 business groups back this progressive policy of extracting young migrants from Central America because it helps deliver more wage-cutting workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, renters, K-12 students, and diversity into the U.S. consumer market.
Even as agency officials release disease-carrying migrants into the United States, they are also claiming they will preserve President Donald Trump’s border protections. On February 19, for example, officials tweeted:
To protect our citizens and prevent the further spread of COVID-19, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are extending the restrictions on non-essential travel at our land borders through March 21. We are also working to ensure essential trade and travel remain open.
The New York Times described the catch and release end of the migration process:
On Saturday, border agents dropped off a dozen migrants, all mothers and small children, outside the Brownsville bus station. Some said they were held longer than the 72-hour limit that border agents are allowed to detain children. Within minutes, a team of city officials and volunteers had begun setting up a station to test for the coronavirus. With a negative test, they were allowed into the station to continue their journey. If they tested positive, the volunteers used donations to pay for their quarantine at a local hotel — although it was not mandatory. Within three hours, the number of migrants at the station grew to about 50.
Doris, a mother of two boys who fled an abusive former partner in Guatemala and crossed the border in recent weeks, did not expect to be provided testing, blankets or coloring books for her children when she was dropped off on Saturday. “They’re very good people,” she said of the city staff and volunteers.
CNN noted that the Biden migrants are responding to Biden’s incentives:
Edwin Rubio and his family were dropped off at the McAllen bus station on a Wednesday morning in early February. Rubio told CNN they decided to make the trek from Honduras to seek asylum after President Joe Biden was elected. “There will be new laws, new immigration laws that will favor Latinos,” he said.
The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.
However, Biden’s officials have been broadcasting their desire to refocus the DHS and USCIS on helping to extract more migrants from Central America for the U.S. economy. On February 19, for example, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ deputies posted a tweet offering support to migrants illegally working in the United States and to migrants who may wish to live in the United States.
The fuss over 'kid in cages' was a crude gotcha by click-bait journos. Fuss helps to hide the reality that Biden's facilities pump more blue-collar migrants into the economy – while Trump's facilities reduced the migration that shifts wages to Wall St.https://t.co/3wPnFX17Fa
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