Will Greg Abbott Pay a Political Price for Texas’s Faulty Power Grid?
Plus, Why (and How) Biden Should Decline to Run Again.
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A.B. Stoddard: Why (and How) Biden Should Decline to Run Again.
President Biden’s approval rating is on the rise. He has now signed more consequential legislation, with slimmer margins and in less time, than any president in recent history. Inflation is down, gas prices are way down, and Democratic voter enthusiasm is up.
Meanwhile Biden’s most likely 2024 opponent is the focus of multiple criminal investigations. This potential challenger is a defeated U.S. president who chose to steal top secret documents and threaten our national security, after inspiring a deadly insurrection and trying to steal an election.
So it’s time for Biden to hang it up. Really.
In early 2023 Biden should announce that he will leave the White House in January 2025 without running for a second term. With meaningful legislative accomplishments on gun reform, bold climate action, and lowering prescription drug prices—plus a legacy of fighting to preserve democracy here and abroad—Biden is already a successful one-term president.
Trump has stayed on message from the start: The people who stormed the Capitol did nothing wrong. This once-radical idea has since become mainstream MAGA. Amanda Carpenter drills down on how the movement to pardon the rioters took off — on the latest installment of “Need to Know.”
On this week’s episode, we’re sharing a director’s cut of a recent focus group, featuring swing state suburban women. These voters from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Georgia backed Trump in 2016, but flipped in 2020. Hear what they have to say about the big races in their states, their desire for things to be “normal” again, and how the end of Roe is influencing their vote this November.
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PAUL ALEXANDER: Will Greg Abbott Pay a Political Price for Texas’s Faulty Power Grid?
Texas is the energy capital of the world, and the governor can’t even keep the lights on. That is a criticism regularly leveled against Greg Abbott—often by his Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke. The former congressman from El Paso, who came within 3 percentage points of unseating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and then ran a quixotic campaign for president in 2020, is now hoping to prevent Abbott from winning a third term. While some polls from the summer have O’Rourke trailing Abbott by 5 points, the RealClearPolitics average puts the gap at around 7 points.
The snarky barb about Abbott and energy is a reference to Winter Storm Uri, the history-making Arctic blast that, for four days in February 2021, held Texas in its deadly grip. Unable to meet demand, the state’s power grid failed, leaving 11 million people without electricity. The result was catastrophic. The estimated death toll ranges from 246 (Texas Department of State Health Services) to over 750 (Buzzfeed). Damage to homes and business totaled $100 billion. And when the power was on, electric rates charged by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) soared to such astronomical levels that, according to Robert Bryce writing in Forbes, “Texas ratepayers are on the hook for at least $10.1 billion in debt . . . and they will be paying off much of that debt for the next 30 years.” That’s because the sky-high bills forced some municipalities to offer 30-year bonds to pay them off.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Happy Tuesday… I hope you had a nice long weekend and didn’t spend your time heckling the President at a Labor Day event… only to be called an idiot.
On the jukebox 🎵: Hans Zimmer Live in Prague.
Another contender… For youngest member of Congress has a very interesting background.
Bill Kristol warns… The GOP cannot be saved. An interesting interview with Greg Sargent on how the underpinnings of populism were there, from the Tea Party to Sarah Palin.
Baseball architecture… The historic stadiums of America.
An insurrectionist government official removed. More of this, please. Amendment 4, Section 3 is there for a reason.
How a MAGA D.C. Cop leaked information about the Seth Rich murder… Because he was a conspiracy theorist. Thankfully, he no longer has a badge.
America is already great… I’m glad that the writer knows Cleveland has some great restaurants, but, that’s pretty much true of every city these days now. #USA.
That’s it for me. Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message.
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