Summary

Texas Senator Ted Cruz faced backlash for vacationing in Cancun while Texas endured a severe winter storm and power crisis, which has been attributed to the state's deregulated power grid and political decisions.

Abstract

The article discusses the controversy surrounding Texas Senator Ted Cruz's decision to travel to Cancun with his family amidst a statewide crisis in Texas, where a severe winter storm caused widespread power outages and at least 21 deaths. The crisis is linked to the state's independent power grid, which was not winterized, and the deregulation policies supported by Cruz and other Texas GOP politicians. The article criticizes Cruz for abandoning his constituents during a time of need and highlights the broader issue of political negligence contributing to the state's vulnerability to extreme weather events. It also touches on the history of Texas' power grid, the impact of climate change, and the misleading narrative about renewable energy's role in the crisis.

Opinions

The author expresses frustration and disappointment with Senator Ted Cruz for leaving Texas during a severe crisis to vacation in Cancun.
There is a clear criticism of the Texas GOP and politicians like Cruz for their role in creating the power grid's vulnerabilities through deregulation policies.
The article suggests that the Texas power grid crisis is a direct result of political choices and neglect, rather than an unforeseeable natural disaster.
The author refutes the claim by Governor Greg Abbott that frozen wind turbines were primarily to blame for the power outages, emphasizing that they account for only 10% of Texas' power.
There is a sense of betrayal and anger towards Cruz for not fulfilling his responsibilities as a senator during the crisis, with the author implying that his actions were self-serving and out of touch with the suffering of Texans.
The piece conveys a sense of irony and sarcasm regarding Cruz's attempt to justify his trip as simply accompanying his family, questioning the optics and timing of such a vacation.
The author identifies with Texans, referring to them as "my fellow Texans" and "my home state," indicating a personal connection to the events and a stake in the state's well-being.

Don’t Mess with Texas

Cruz heads off to Cancun while Lone Star State freezes its cojones off

The wire-rims and the mask can’t disguise Texas Senator Ted Cruz going through security on his way to Cancun with wife, Heidi. Texans have been without power since Monday. Photo Collage: Author’s archives

Apparently, Ted Cruz wanted to get away. Life in D.C. has been so stressful these days, what with trying to save the presiduncey for Trumplethinskin, the U.S. Capitol Insurrection, the impeachment trial and the Lone Star State — which he has represented since 2013 — suffering through its worst deep freeze in generations.

He says he was just accompanying the fam to Cancun Wednesday night. His wife, Heidi, and their two girls went with. Cruz flew back to Houston Thursday, solo bueno.

Why the need to babysit the gals on the way to the Mayan Riviera? Will Cruz go back at the end of the sojourn to pick them up? I have so many questions.

But I really think he just got caught trying to sneak away while his constituents were freezing to death.

Folks are dying, for sure. And it’s all because Cruz and his Texas GOP brethren hate deregulation. So who wouldn’t want to get away for a little siesta and fiesta time?

Ex-patriot Texans, like moi, woke up Thursday morning wondering if our amigos in the Motherland were surviving. At least 21 have died this week because of the political negligence. Millions — from the Red River Valley to the Rio Grande — are without power and with no hopes of it coming back on any time soon.

Make no mistake about it — it’s cold out there. A friend down Austin way reports temps below zero. Another in Central Texas says she’s under all the blankets she could find in the house and her furnace is on its last legs. This is not the kind of extreme winter that most Tejanos signed up for.

My fellow Texans are a hearty bunch. But I’d like to set the record straight here. Misplaced Twitter posts excoriating my friends in Texas aside, it’s not the fault of most residents that their power grid quit on them in the wake a winter storm that ravaged the Lone Star State’s electrical generating capacities. It’s politicians like Cruz — he of bombastic pronouncements and nasty personal vendettas — who caused this mess.

I’m no economist, nor do I want to pretend that I know everything about what is taking place in my home state. But I know that Texans are generally a hearty, can-do bunch, with quite a bit of Lone Star hubris. We are the only state in the Union that was once a country, after all. And we’ve had that same “Everything’s Better in Texas” attitude toward most problems thrown our way in the 176 years since Texas became the 28th state in 1845.

But let’s put Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, William Travis and other so-called Texas “patriots” aside for a moment. Our modern-day Texas politicians played us for suckers. They sold us a bill of goods, and the payment came due this week in the form of our kin finding themselves frozen to the core with no help on the way.

The high school English teacher in me wants to explain this sad sitch in a Cliff’s Notes fashion. First, what’s a power grid? It’s a coordinated system of electrical hook-ups and power generating facilities, from the teeny, tiny wires at your house to the power lines that loom over your neighborhoods, to the actual transmission facilities, power plants, generating stations or whatever your local jurisdiction calls them, which send electricity your way. And you know what you use this power grid for? Everything, from cooking to heating your house to running the washing machine, to turning on the lights at night.

In the “olden days” — circa the early 2000s or so — the United States had two national “power grids”. And they worked fairly effectively — of course there were those three East Coast Blackouts, in 1965, 1977 and 2003, which shut off power to millions — and the electrical grid system in this country, considering that it services 300 million-plus Americans, was considered a keeper. It operated on a system whereby if one jurisdiction was lacking power, it could “borrow” or “purchase” power from a neighboring outlet. Everyone was happy with this arrangement.

Except Texas, of course. And by “Texas”, I mean “Texas Politicians”. And by “Texas Politicians”, I mean the “Texas GOP”, which has been in charge of the state the last 25 years. Of course. Did you suspect that those yahoos had anything to do with turning their state into a frozen tundra this week? I did.

Long story short, the Tejas politicos of the GOP variety decided they didn’t just want to go along to get along. Because being part of the “United” States of America means sometimes playing by someone else’s rules. And in Texas, they mistakenly surmised, we don’t like to share.

These pendejos figured Texas — big, beautiful, strong, independent Texas — should go it alone. So they seceded from the national setup. They formed what is known as the Texas Power Grid. That meant Texas — the great, proud, energy producer — could control its own power. It also meant prices dropped because deregulation is practically a statewide religion down there.

But the new status, with its own grid and all — and remember, this is just a loose approximation of what happened, not an economist’s analysis — also meant that no one in charge of generating power in Texas was in charge of winterizing the dang grid that produced all that electricity. And no one saw — or if they did, they didn’t believe that the effects of climate change were coming down the pike. Because it’s always sunny in Mama Texas, correctamundo?

What does all of this — the dead, the millions of residents freezing their freakin’ cojones off, the frozen natural gas lines and, yes, the frozen wind turbines (but don’t listen to that crackpot, Governor Greg Abbott, because only 10 percent of Texas’ power comes from renewables like wind) — have to do with Senator Ted Cruz?

He’s a Texas Rethuglican. And he’s been one — in the U.S. Senate and at the state level — for almost 20 years. You don’t think this rapscallion has anything to do with the mess in Texas right now? Then I’d say you’re one enchilada short of a combination platter, hombre.

Cruz is one of those culos who’s in charge. He decided to direct the response to Texas’ woes from the sunny climes of Cancun. And then his fellow passengers — and quite a few well-known Texans like newsman Dan Rather — outed him on Twitter.

I’m sure Cruz doesn’t have a clue how to defrost the chilly relations he’s cemented with his constituents. That’s a problem no amount of sand, sunshine and silly umbrella drinks can solve.