Two things come to mind when I think about Tucker Carlson; racism and that blank look on his face.  Carlson’s crowning achievement is a repertoire completely devoid of integrity or information.

Trevor Noah put together a little mashup that highlights Carlson’s racism, Jeopardy style.  Click HERE to view that.  And thank you, Alex.

I caught a couple minutes of Carlson the other night and within 30 seconds he said two things that were demonstrable and blatant LIES.

Referring to the power outage in Texas, Carlson said that windmills make up 25% of the Texas power grid and that they freeze in the winter.

A two-second search would have informed Carlson that wind turbines only make up about 7-13% of Texas’ expected winter usage and wind turbines don’t freeze up in the winter.

At least they don’t have to freeze up in the winter.

To prove his point, Carlson showed a dramatic video of a helicopter deicing a frozen wind turbine.  True to form though, the video was from Sweden in 2014.

Wind turbines in Iowa, Canada and as far north as the Arctic Circle operate down to actual temperatures of 22 degrees below zero Fahrenheit because they are equipped to operate in those conditions.

Carbon fiber, internal heating elements, waterproof coatings and deicing kits all work to make wind turbines impervious to cold weather.

Because of the lack of regulation in the Wild West culture of Texas and the failure of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, winterizing wind turbines was only a suggestion, not a requirement.

Texas’ power grid broke down at the infrastructure level of coal and natural gas power plants. Take two seconds and make your own determination.

Did Carlson know none of this or did know all of it and deliberately lie about it?  As always, it comes down to one basic question:  Is he stupid or a lying piece of shit?

Rest easy, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Twenty years ago Texas’ Republican legislators decided to separate their power grid from the rest of the country to avoid federal regulation.  Their power grid is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas with oversight from the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

It’s all a dog-and-pony show of deregulation and privatization.  If only Texans would have seceded their whole damn state instead of just the power grid.

Texas Republicans have repeatedly shown that they will do ANYTHING to restrict voter access, but their only agenda is to deregulate at the risk of their constituents and to thumb their collective noses at the federal government.

Until they need help, like when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017 and right now.

They are power hungry White men who have repeatedly shown that they are incapable and/or unwilling to govern.

Two areas in Texas with independently governed power grids, Beaumont in the east and El Paso in the west made investments to winterize their power generators and were spared the devastation of this week’s cold snap.

As for the millions of Texans who were clearly NOT enjoying their misery, one of Rick Perry’s more bizarre claims, they fell victim to what has become the hallmark trinity of the GOP; ignorance, incompetence and greed.

Does Tucker Carlson want us to close our eyes to the ever more obvious and destructive effects of climate change and global warming?  Does he want us to join Republicans in their war on renewable energy?

I read that Donnie Trump told some 30,000 lies during his presidency, many of them reinforced in the echo chambers of FOX, Newsmax, OAN and the now dead, Rush Limbaugh.

All of that led up to the Big Lie that our election was somehow stolen by Democrats, which led to a violent insurrection at our nation’s Capitol.

Enough already.  Stop the lies.

Tucker, please stick to your racism.  It’s what you know best and at least, it’s honest.

Reminder:  Extreme winter weather (cold, snow, wind, etc) is EXACTLY what we can expect from a planet on the current trajectory of global warming.

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