Hat tip to Talking Points Memo for picking up on a story out of Texas. It seems the mayor of Colorado City, TX has a social media post that triggered a backlash.
As someone who had a family member on a city council once upon a time, I’m guessing the mayor, Tim Boyd, was getting a lot of phone calls and messages from his town folk, who were sitting in the dark and freezing. That’s how local government works, right? When things don’t work, the people who are in charge should expect to take responsibility. He didn’t take it well.
This story already has several posts about it; KTXS has both the original post Boyd made, complete with typos, and the followup in which he non-apologizes and confirms his resignation. I’ll excerpt this one quote — it’s what Republican governance comes down to: You are on your own.
No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice!
And here’s an excerpt from the followup post:
Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!
Thank you
Tim Boyd(citizen)
See, he’s the real victim here.
More from the department of schadenfreude — a twitter thread about a survivalist conspiracy theorist whose prepping for the end of civilization turns out to have a few shortcomings.
See, if you are going to play act the Ayn Rand fantasy from “Atlas Shrugged” where you’re living in Galt’s Gulch and surviving while the rest of the world collapses, you’d better be sure one of your number is a super genius who can pull technology miracles out of his butt. Otherwise, you’re liable to find you’re a clueless loser whose life expectancy is measured in days and hours. MAGA!
This would be funnier if we didn't have to deal with these idiots making things worse while the rest of us are trying to pull things together. Between the pandemic, climate change, and everything else, the Republican Party is like the characters in a horror movie whose main contribution is getting in the way of the people trying to save everyone. Everyone cheers when the hero breaks their grip, they fall into the abyss, the monster eats them, and they meet their doom — which they had created in the first place.
The Republican Party has become the Cult of Trump. It is a death cult, like Jim Jones, the Branch Davidians of Koresh, Heaven’s Gate. If they really want to survive, they should take John Galt’s advice and get the hell out of our way. But there is little evidence they are willing to survive if it means giving up their fantasies. Our task is to keep them from taking us with them.
Wednesday, Feb 17, 2021 · 8:14:10 PM +00:00
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xaxnar
UPDATE: hat tip to Charlie Pierce for picking up on something from the Houston Chronicle.
Harris County has seen more than 300 carbon monoxide poisoning cases as temperatures bottomed out Monday in Houston and the state’s electricity grid failed, sending people scrambling for heat sources. That includes 90 carbon monoxide poisoning calls to the Houston Fire Department and 100 cases in Memorial Hermann's emergency rooms.
Many of the cases stem from people using BBQ pits and generators indoors to stay warm, said Drew Munhausen, a Memorial Hermann spokesperson. Doctors are treating 60 of those cases at the hospital’s Texas Medical Center location.
“With that number of patients going in, it’s turning into a mini mass casualty event,” said Dr. Samuel Prater, a UTHealth emergency physician who works with Memorial Hermann. More than half the patients were children, Prater said.
Voting as though your life depends on it is literally and figuratively true. The GOP death cult continues to rack up a body count.