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Volunteers load cases of water into the bed of a truck during a mass water distribution at Delmar Stadium on February 19, 2021. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Texas' massive freeze left Texans feeling abandoned not only by leadership but by critics of the state who jeered at victims of the winter storm.

Rather than judge the state by its politics, it's crucial to understand the state's diversity and history of voter suppression.

Regardless of party lines, no human deserves to freeze to death in their own home.

Jillian Goltzman is a freelance journalist covering culture, lifestyle, and social impact.

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Winter Storm Uri tore through Texas with a vengeance that uncovered just how poorly out-of-touch some politicians are in a crisis - and how uncouth people on the internet can be. Texans were forced to endure subfreezing temperatures for days without electricity, heat, and water amid a deadly pandemic. Republican leaders like Governor Greg Abbott incorrectly blamed green energy, and Senator Ted Cruz, both literally and figuratively, left his constituents out in the cold by fleeing to Cancun. Of all the reactions to the downfall of Texas' electric grid, one rang loud and clear on Twitter: "we told you so."

It was 40 degrees inside my house when I saw the tweet from Stephen King. "Hey, Texas! Keep voting for officials who don't believe in climate change and supported privatization of the power grid," he jeered in a tweet. A succession of "too bad" and "they shouldn't have voted for Trump" tweets soon filled my screen. As a liberal living in Texas, I wanted to hurl my phone across the room, but I knew it would mean having to get up from under the layers of blankets keeping me warm.

The individualism that flows through the Lone Star State has suddenly become its demise. Our residents don't deserve your misplaced blame. If you've seen the map of the United States' power grid circulating online, you'll notice that the Texas Interconnection stands alone. Further isolating Texas, the Texas Senate Bill 7 - signed into law by George W. Bush in 1999 - ushered in Texas's opportunity to deregulate electricity and switch to a free-market approach. Despite a 2011 winter storm and the growing challenges of climate change, Texas energy plants failed to winterize their equipment for the future. Exactly a decade later, we learned the cost of that mistake.

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Contrary to what Twitter keyboard warriors think they know about Texas, the state isn't completely made of oil rigs and MAGA flags. To claim some sick version of schadenfreude for social clout isn't just uninformed; it's amoral. Our state felt abandoned by politicians but we also felt jilted by fellow Americans who turned Texas into the butt of a joke. The political affiliation of your state shouldn't be a death sentence. No human being deserves to freeze to death.

Misplaced opinions only undercut the massive trauma and loss Texans are experiencing. Homes were destroyed, people starved during food shortages, and residents tragically fell victim to hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning while struggling to stay warm. This is only magnified by the sad fact that we've already lost 43,341 residents to COVID-19. While the system that enabled the power grid's failure is evidently damaged, snide jabs won't help our community move past the devastation it's endured.

I was one of the 4.5 million people who lost power in Texas as the temperatures dipped into single digits across the state. For three days, my partner and I grappled with the surreal reality that Texas - a state that boasts of everything being bigger and better - could let this happen. It was sometime between my Googling symptoms of hypothermia and trying to unsuccessfully build a furnace out of a terracotta pot that I realized the weight of our situation.

When I moved to Houston six years ago, I could have never imagined a freeze paralyzing the state. My group chats turned into a survivalist manifesto as my friends shared tips, offered up supplies, and tried to keep each other informed with our single bar of cell service. One friend sent a photo of her lunch - a tin can of soup heating over a tealight candle - while another posted a photo of a frozen stream of ice escaping her kitchen sink. The visual that left me eviscerated was a video of a friend warming her baby's bottle using the heater in her car.

All of this, and we were the lucky ones.

Like most disasters, the winter storm disproportionately affected low-income and historically marginalized communities. This crisis is only compounded by a pandemic that has impacted Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities throughout the state. There have been 80 deaths accounted for thus far, with more predicted in the next three months as autopsy reports become available. Christian Pavon Pineda, an 11-year-old boy, died of hypothermia in the bed of his family's Conroe mobile home while trying to keep his brother warm. Did he or any other victim deserve this because he lived in a red state?

Petulant opinions like King's have only continued in the weeks following the freeze.

Earlier this week, Abbott made a shocking announcement that Texas would be reopening and lifting all COVID-19 restrictions, including life-saving mask mandates. This announcement came a day after Houston became the first city to have all COVID-19 variants.

Despite the backlash Abbott received from his constituents, notable progressives made sweeping generalizations that left us feeling worthless. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann asked Twitter, "Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to choose the side of the virus?"

Documentary maker Michael Moore went on to say Texans think COVID-19 is a hoax and don't need the vaccine. "We'll send it to ppl who are saving lives by wearing masks," he tweeted. The "Fahrenheit 11/9" creator - quick to point out how political decisions can devastate communities like Flint, Michigan - should know that no good comes from writing off populations in crisis.

The view that Texans keep voting for Republican officials is myopic at its best and dangerous at its worst. To say the state fully supports our privatized power grid is to disregard the grassroots movements that have steadily worked for progress in Texas and advocated for green energy.

The most populated cities in Texas, like Houston and Austin, are widely led by Democrat leadership. Last week Brittany Packnett Cunningham tweeted, "Texas isn't red - it's suppressed."

Republicans have held onto their 20-year majority, but it's difficult to turn a blind eye to the state's 150-year history of voter suppression, as documented by Texas Monthly. Most recently, the Texas GOP challenged the legality of 127,000 votes made at a drive-thru voting site in Harris County in the 2020 election but the move was thrown out by U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen.

Like the misunderstanding of Texas politics, people often misunderstand Texas' people.

More than cowboys and cacti, Texas is home to some of the most diverse cities in the United States. We have the second-highest Hispanic and Latinx population in the country, with that total growing by two million in the last decade. There are 145 languages spoken in Houston alone. Montrose, the historic Houston neighborhood that birthed the city's LGBTQ movement of the '80s, continues to be an eclectic haven known for pride.

In the 2018 midterms, 19 Black women were elected as judges in Harris County, celebrating with the group name "Black Girl Magic." In that same year, County Judge Lina Hidalgo made history as the first woman and first Latina elected to the role. My city is vibrant, progressive and teeming with a culture that outsiders rarely acknowledge or understand. Before you make generalizations, I challenge you to spend a day here.

I am defensive of Texas not because it's perfectly run, but because it's my home.

I finally understand the pride that so many Texans feel because of the unpredictable challenges we've faced. I've seen good Samaritans raft through floodwaters to rescue strangers during Hurricane Harvey. I've witnessed neighbors grocery shopping for one another during a deadly pandemic. Last week, I saw Texans jump at the chance to share their electricity to provide warmth and a hot shower to others.

We are not 38 electoral votes or a red body of land on a map. We are more than 29 million of your neighbors. We are not fodder for your 280 characters - we are human beings who need your support.

Jillian Goltzman is a freelance journalist covering culture, lifestyle, and social impact. You can follow her work on her website and Twitter.

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Liberals who made fun of Texas need to understand that your political party shouldn't be a death sentence - Yahoo News

However, as many Americans noticed, on Friday as the Senate voted on whether to raise the federal minimum wage, one senator decided to make a little spectacle out of her vote.

Kyrsten Sinema gave a dramatic thumbs down moments after literally bringing a chocolate cake to the Senate (reportedly as a gift for the Senate staff who worked through the night to read the entire COVID-19 relief bill out loud). Among the eight members of the Democratic caucus who voted against raising the minimum wage, Sinema has by far the most constituents who are currently earning the minimum wage, which in Arizona is $11.

While Sinema didnt sink the bill alone, her antics made her a focal point of wrath from those on the progressive left.

Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib tweeted about the Sinema thumbs down, saying no one should ever be this happy to vote against uplifting people out of poverty.

But Tlaib probably knows a thing or two about Sinema, as everyone does in Washington these days. She has crafted herself to be one half of a pair of Democratic senators who seem to have the ability to derail the entire Democratic agenda in the next two years.

Yes, Democrats amazingly took majority control of the Senate by winning two seats in Georgia, but any bill still has to get a thumbs up from Sinema and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

The thing is that while Manchin is politically forced to be a centrist given that he represents such a deeply Republican state, he actually is a centrist. He was centrist even in his earliest days in state house politics when Democrats ran everything in Charleston. During his time in the Senate, he has been a leader for centrist organizations, like No Labels.

In other words, he has always been this way.

Sinema, however, has not.

Sinema began her career in politics working in Ralph Naders Green Party. Her politics were so far to the left that she ran as an independent the first time she ran for state representative before later running as a Democrat and winning. Soon, she was in the Arizona state Senate, where she once said she was the most liberal member of the body, and that was probably true. She also led the fight against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in her state.

When she won a seat in Congress for 2013, she did so as a barrier breaker, becoming the first openly bisexual woman to ever serve. And guess what? It was a year later she tweeted that raising the minimum wage was a no brainer because, she argued, no one should work full time and live in poverty. This is the same argument advocates have made about the current minimum wage.

While there were some grumblings on the left about her bipartisan approach when she ran for Senate in 2018, she faced little opposition from Democrats for the open seat.

In 2020, however, Sinema came into her own nationally. She became known as the woman who wore colorful wigs on the staid Senate floor (since she wasnt getting her hair cut during the lockdown.) When she presided over the Senate wearing a shirt reading Dangerous Creature, Mitt Romney was overheard telling her that she was breaking the Internet.

To which, she replied, good.

As a human and not a politician, Sinema is deeply impressive. For a while, she grew up in an abandoned gas station, she graduated from college in two years, and holds an M.B.A., a law degree, and a Ph.D. doctorate in justice studies. She also competes in Ironman competitions and has qualified for the Boston Marathon.

But by going to the middle, her shift in ideology and outlook has disappointed liberals. Still, it may have been logical enough given that she is representing all of Arizona, which retains a strong conservative bent despite voters there recently electing Democrats.

Though, while Sinema was giving her thumbs down, Arizonas other Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly, did vote for the minimum wage increase. And, unlike Sinema, he is up for reelection next year.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell.

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The senator who is breaking the Internet (and liberal hearts) has a wild backstory - The Boston Globe

Both major political parties have been criticised for running online advertisements which direct users to websites to find out where they can vote early in the WA election, without disclosing their links to either site.

An ad for the website VoteWA.com.au appears as the first or second result under a number of Google searches, including "vote early Perth".

A similar ad for WhereCanIVote.org.au appears on some searches, including "vote early Liberal WA".

VoteWA.com.au is run by WA Labor and WhereCanIVote.org.au was setup by the Liberals.

In some cases, the websites appear above links to official pages run by the WA Electoral Commission (WAEC).

In both instances, it is not until users are on the websites that they are presented with a small disclosure at the bottom of the pages revealing the sites' owners.

Supplied

WhereCanIVote.org.au also contains the Liberal Party's logo as the site's icon.

It comes as a record number of Western Australians vote early, with the WAEC reporting yesterday that about one in five electors, or 343,796, had already cast their ballot.

VoteWA website

That is compared to the 214,242 people who voted early in the 2017 state election.

It is not suggested that either party is breaking WA's electoral laws or regulations.

Once on the VoteWA.com.au site, users are asked to enter their home address, which the site uses to display a page showing their nearest early voting centre and a photo of Mark McGowan with their electorate's Labor candidate.

Further down the page, alongside how to vote cards, are options for users to have "free directions" sent to their mobile phone or email address.

The politics, the policies and the people. We've collected all our coverage on the election campaign here.

Both require the user to enter their first and last names to receive the instructions.

A link to WA Labor's privacy policy, which was until last week only accessible from the site after entering an address, states any information provided to the party "will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided".

WA Labor did not directly answer questions from the ABC about how the website collected data, or about its failure to disclose the ownership of the site in Google ads.

"The VoteWA.com.au website is an easy way for people to access how to vote material for WA Labor candidates, and to find their nearest early voting centre," a party spokesperson said.

Similarly, the WhereCanIVote.org.au website asks users to enter their postcode, which it uses to display their Liberal candidate, as well as polling places open before and on election day.

There is also an option to download a how-to-vote card, which is the first time the Liberal Party logo clearly appears in any of the site's content.

Supplied

In response to questions from the ABC, a Liberal Party campaign spokesperson said the site did not track the postcodes entered by users.

"The website WhereCanIVote.org.au is provided as a service to electors to assist them in finding local polling places and Liberal candidates," they said.

"It is authorised in accordance with electoral laws."

The websites have raised the eyebrows of internet and political experts, who said their links to their respective parties should be made more clear.

Supplied

"These purport to show how-to-vote sites, which look like public utilities, but they're actually effectively advertising websites for the state political parties," professor of internet studies Tama Leaver said.

"It really wouldn't be difficult to make it clearer on either page that this is a website designed and run by a political party.

"I think it would do a great deal for peoples' trust in political parties if they were more upfront with what they were doing."

Mr Leaver said the situation was another example of why WA needed to better regulate internet advertising during elections.

ABC News: Gian De Poloni

"I think both parties are being as transparent as currently required by law and not a single step further," he said.

"We've got incredibly clear rules around when you can and can't advertise in print and on television, we've got quite clear rules about what you can and can't say and how much you need to disclose.

"Tightening up political advertising regulations so that it clearly applies online and clearly applies to social media would certainly make it a more transparent, and a more democratic system."

Political analyst Peter Kennedy agreed that while the websites appeared to comply with WA's Electoral Act, their affiliations could have been more obvious.

Google

He said the parties would not have created the websites unless they believed they could affect how individual voters might cast their ballot.

"They might be influenced by a party's how-to-vote card, or they could ignore it," he said.

"The political parties do it because they think their might be an advantage in it, and there may well be some political advantage.

"I don't think it would be a very marked advantage though."

Check out our quick 5-minute guide to what all the parties in the WA election actually stand for.

Data from Google reveals the WA Liberals have spent $33,450 on political advertising since the middle of November last year, making them the highest-spending organisation in the nation among those listed.

That accounts for more than half of the total amount spent on political advertising through Google and its other services, including YouTube, over that period.

Most of it has been spent on ads since February 7 around $20,000.

The WA Greens spent the second highest amount, forking out $23,700 for their ads.

WA Labor does not appear in the data.

See the article here:
Labor and Liberal parties criticised for running WA election online ads without disclosing links - ABC News

One of the only surviving Liberal members admits he knew from the middle of last year the party would be in serious trouble when WA voters went to the polls.

At this stage the party has only secured two seats in the lower house, and might retain a third.

Member for Cottesloe David Honey told 6PRs Liam Bartlett he conducted his own polling last June.

I knew this was a tough election, the toughest election we will ever have faced, he said.

I knew from the middle of last year that we were in the most serious trouble.

He also admitted the partys green energy policy received mixed feedback.

There was a campaign committee, that campaign committee decided what the policies were, he said.

There is no doubt whatsoever that renewables are the future for a new industry in the state.

In terms of going for a hard stop on collie, it was my personal view that, that was not a politically wise move to do.

Mr Honey said once counting is complete the party will meet to decide on a leader between him and Member for Vasse Libby Mettam.

He said discussions will also be conducted with the National party to form a coalition party.

Whatever happens we will be working hand in hand to keep the government to account.

Nationals Leader Mia Davies also wouldnt speculate on whether the party will bail out the Liberals and form a coalition, until all votes are counted.

We need to make sure we know who is sitting in each party room before we make decisions like that, she said.

But both of us are very clear on the fact that we need to find a way to hold the government to account.

Click play to hear the full interviews.

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David Honey admits Liberal party was in 'serious trouble' last year - 6PR

Californias in tough shape: Weve got our own dangerous virus variant, homelessness appears uncontrollable, and the governor may soon face a recall election.

That can only mean one thing: time for establishment media to once again declare the death of The California Dream.

Its happened every downturn since the end of the Gold Rush, but these new eulogies have a fresh twist: The dream this time has apparently been ruined by an excess of liberalism. Big government projects and over-regulation are to blame for the shattering of an illusion.

Without question, California sometimes suffers vertigo from tilting too far left; the San Francisco Board of Educations crusade to rename schools is one handy example. Small business owners here can rattle off a long list of frustrations about government micro-management.

But this is also a state where voters last November overwhelming rejected progressive ballot measures to end bail, restore affirmative action, strengthen rent control, and hike taxes on commercial property.

Rather than liberalism, California is the victim of something quite different: high tech and the rough economic beast it calls creative destruction. A generation ago, Silicon Valley was heralded as the states salvation, but has instead constructed a winner-take-all world of the super-rich serviced by gig workers who face anxiety and uncertainty with every sunrise.

When most East Coast-based media speak of the California Dream, they really have one particular era in mind: the post-World War II boom. Between 1940 and 1950, the states population grew by 53 percent; from 1950 to 1960, another 49 percent.

Families moved here not just because of the Beach Boys; they were drawn by an explosion of Cold War jobs in aerospace and other defense industries. FHA loans and the GI Bill enabled those workers to build homes, buy cars, and send their kids to well-run public schools.

But when the Berlin Wall collapsed, so did that defense-based economy. By the early 1990s, more than 200,000 industrial jobs were lost in Southern California alone. Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Calif) told the Washington Post, The truth is we were not prepared for peace in the world.

Years of anger and despair followed: high unemployment, gang violence, and riots. Mother Nature didnt help: earthquakes, fires and floods ravaged wide sections of the state. California in the 90s felt like it was going through a nervous breakdown.

But, amid all this, green shoots appeared south of San Francisco, in Silicon Valley. Computer engineers and technology innovators there envisioned a brave new world of unlimited access to information, instant connection across the globe, and bold choices for workers and industry.

Dreams of a second post-war-style boom blossomed.

Three decades later, changes in our everyday lives are significant from online banking to iPhones. But the working world Big Tech has created is very different from the broad prosperity shared by defense and aerospace working families. A relative handful of people have made a lot of money the kind of money not even Gold Rush barons could dream of. And then theres everybody else.

By the end of 2018, for example, wages were actually down even in Silicon Valley for everyone outside the top ten percent. Those decreases were driven in part by outsourcing and by the downward wage pressure of a low-paid gig economy created by the likes of Uber, Doordash, Task Rabbit, and Instacart.

At the same time, high techs steady stream of newly-minted millionaires and billionaires helped drive up property values throughout the state contributing substantially to Californias always-difficult homeless problem. It got so bad in Silicon Valley that the San Jose school district came up with a plan to turn unused schools into housing for teachers who otherwise couldnt afford to live anywhere near their students.

Several California born-and-bred technology companies are now predictably moving out of the state, escaping the uncomfortable issues they helped create. Oracle and Hewlett-Packard are heading for Texas, others to Florida places where workers can actually buy a house and where corporations can dream of what a Hewlett-Packard spokesperson termed opportunities for long-term cost savings.

Yes, the California Dream is having a fragile moment. To find the biggest culprit, dont point at liberalism. Media should instead examine an industry that began with real promise but soon evolved into a brutal form of creative destruction. That disruption has compelled too many descendants of Cold War workers to make ends meet by standing in line or running up and down supermarket aisles, so better-off people dont have to.

Years ago, Facebooks Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergFacebook touts benefits of personalized ads in new campaign Mellman: White working-class politics Hillicon Valley: Companies urge action at SolarWinds hearing | Facebook lifts Australian news ban | Biden to take action against Russia in 'weeks' MORE adopted a motto for his then-rapidly-growing start-up words that were soon embraced by others as a high tech creed: Move fast and break things.

Thats just whats been done to many dreams, California and otherwise.

Joe Ferullo is an award-winning media executive, producer and journalist and former executive vice president of programming for CBS Television Distribution. He was a news executive for NBC, a writer-producer for Dateline NBC, and worked for ABC News. Follow him on Twitter@ironworker1.

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Who killed the California Dream? If you think it was liberals, think again | TheHill - The Hill