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As the crisis of rolling blackouts in Texasunfolds this week, some of the states loudest Republican politicians are falsely dragging frozen wind turbines as the cause. But behind every wind energy smear by a Texas politician is a dizzying amount of money contributed by the fossil fuel industry.

Earther looked at whose money is behind the loudest anti-wind voices this week. We used OpenSecrets data as well as individual political donations logged with the Federal Election Commission website to look at donations for Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and Sen. John Cornynthree of the Texas politicians sitting in Washington, D.C., who have been most outspoken in their criticism of wind energys supposed role in the blackouts.

All three have continued to scapegoat renewables throughout the week, and looking at their donors, its no surprise. Federal campaign finance data shows more than 30 companies in the oil and gas industry, from multinational names like Exxon and Chevron to local power players like Texas Transeastern and Wildhorse Energy, gave tens of thousands of dollars to Cornyn, Cruz, and Crenshaw over the past year. That includes thousands from individuals employed by those companies as well as largesse from their corporate PACs.

Cornyn, who was reelected last fall, was a big recipient of industry money. Between 2019 and 2020, Cornyn raked in more than $50,000 from Marathon Petroleums PAC and $25,000 from natural gas infrastructure company Sempra Energys PAC, as well as $25,000 from utility giant NextEnergy and $40,000 from Koch Industries. He also did well with oil and gas power players individually: CEOs or other key executives of Western Refining, Hunt Oil Company, Chief Oil and Gas, Walter Oil and Gas, Magnolia Oil and Gas, Occidental Petroleum, Cox Oil, Hilcorp Ventures and Kinder Morgan all donated $50,000 or more each to PACs associated with Cornyns campaign in the last election cycle.

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Crenshaw, who ran for reelection in the House, also made out handsomely from the industry last cycle. The oil and gas industry overall donated $453,247 to Crenshaw last year ($311,947 from individuals, $141,300 total from PACs). Oil and gas was his largest industry donor by PAC money, including $10,000 each from Energy Transfer, Valero Energy, Occidental Petroleum, and Marathon Petroleum.

Cruz wasnt up for reelection last year, but the industry didnt forget about him. He still bagged $14,000 from Chevrons PAC and $10,000 from Exxonsa little spending money, we guessas well as tens of thousands of dollars in individual contributions from employees of 30 oil and gas companies. All told, these three Texas Republicans alone snagged more than $1.1 million from the industry in the 2020 election cycle.

But it wasnt just these three Texans in the nations capital doing dirty work for fossil fuels. On Tuesday, as millions in his state suffered through the cold and without power, Gov. Greg Abbott made an appearance on Sean Hannity where he ripped into renewables. The blackout shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America, Abbott told Hannity. Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis....It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.

And lets not forget Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who just last week was busy preparing a bill that would blacklist businesses based on their friendliness to fossil fuels. For Texas two head honchos, we used individual contributions pulled from state-level data logged on the site Transparency USA, and found some real Easter eggs from the industry.

Abbott and Patricks PACs share a bunch of big individual fossil fuel donors. Syed Javaid Anwar, the CEO of Midland Energy, was Abbotts top donor between 2019 and 2020, giving a total of $1,617,500 to his PAC. The CEO also gave generously to Patrick, kicking his PAC just under $250,000 over that same time period. Douglas Scharbauer, an heir to a West Texas oil, ranching, and race horse fortune, gave a total of $350,000 to the lieutenant governors PAC in 2019, while another oil heir, Ray Lee Hunt, also pitched in generously with donations of $500,000 to the PACs of Abbott and $250,000 to Patrick. (Hunt also gave more than $63,000 to Cornyns PAC.) Not to be outdone, Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, kicked $500,000 to Abbotts PAC and $200,000 to Patricks in the same time period. Warrens firm is behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, and he has said talking about the pipeline is like talking about my son.

Whats happening in Texas right now is a perfect storm of poor planning, crazy weather, and a widespread government failure to prepare the electric grid. Fossil fuels had a big part to play in how this disaster went down as natural gas and coal sources failed at multiple points, from energy sources themselves freezing to pipelines shutting down. The Texas grids terrible setupa lack of integration with other states to ensure a consistent power supply, lagging weatherization updates, predatory pricing habitscant be tied to one source, but politicians like Crenshaw, Cruz, and Abbott are choosing to hammer down on renewables while blessing fossil fuels, similar to how theyve reacted during Californias blackouts in recent years. While its impossible to say why, their donations tell a pretty damning story hereand research has shown donors make it rain on politicians who do their bidding.

The fossil fuel industry has also made it clear that it sees wind power in Texas as a threat to its business. A panel on Texas windpower convened at the wind industrys key summit in 2019 addressed this issue directly. People are spending millions of dollars to hobble the wind industry, moderator Chris Tomlinson, a Houston Chronicle columnist, said at the panel, claiming that there are lobbyists in Austin who have been told to spend nearly half their time opposing the wind industry.

When such a large-scale screw up like this happenswhen lives are lost and people sufferwe have to examine what those in control of the status quo have to lose, and what changes they are advocating. The fossil fuel industry is fighting to keep its control over a rapidly changing energy landscape, and part of their strategy is giving as much as possible to those in charge, particularly Republicans. Even though experts across the board agree that we need a clean energy grid thats reliable and have even created a popular plan for how to get there, conservative politicians with loud platforms are blocking serious discussion, let alone action.The longer the industry keeps the political system captured and the more these people lie, the more likely it is well see even more death and chaos ahead.

Dhruv Mehrotra contributed reporting to this piece.

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How Much the Oil and Gas Industry Paid Texas Republicans Who Are Lying About Wind Energy - Gizmodo

The moves are the latest in a series of censures and disciplinary actions doled out to lawmakers deemed to be critical of the former president in the wake of the Capitol riot. Trump, acquitted Saturday of inciting the insurrection, still has broad support among Republican voters and state and local parties have lashed out at elected officials who have been critical of his actions.

In Wyoming, the state party voted to censure Rep. Liz Cheney for her House vote to impeach Trump. The Arizona Republican Party recently censured Republican Gov. Doug Ducey after he opted not to back Trump's bid to subvert the election results. The Arizona party also censured Cindy McCain, GOP Sen. John McCain's widow, and former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake after they backed Joe Biden for president.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) listens during a news conference in Washington, D.C. | Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images

Sen. Ben Sasse, one of the seven Senate votes against Trump, is also facing potential censure from the Nebraska GOP central committee for his harsh criticism of the presidents efforts to overturn the election results.

Sasse, who was also censured by the committee in 2016 for being insufficiently supportive of Trump, responded last week by releasing a direct-to-camera video denouncing a brand of politics marked by the weird worship of one dude.

Yet it was Cassidy who received the harshest rebuke Saturday.

Four days earlier, the state party described itself as profoundly disappointed when Cassidy joined five other Republicans to vote that the Senate trial was constitutional. Cassidy defended that vote, arguing Trump's defense team did a "terrible job."

The Louisiana GOP's executive committee said Saturday in a statement that it voted unanimously to censure Cassidy for his vote to convict.

"We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Sen. Cassidy to convict former President Trump," the party added in a tweet. "Fortunately, clearer heads prevailed and President Trump has been acquitted of the impeachment charge filed against him."

Cassidy defended his vote in a two-sentence statement.

"Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty, the senator wrote.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. | Greg Nash/Pool via AP

The chair of the North Carolina Republican Party called Burr's vote to convict Trump "shocking and disappointing." Burr, who is not running for reelection in 2022, was the only one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump who voted earlier in the week that the trial was unconstitutional.

"North Carolina Republicans sent Senator Burr to the United States Senate to uphold the Constitution and his vote today to convict in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing," Michael Whatley wrote in a one-sentence statement.

Burr said he still thinks the trial was unconstitutional, but since the Senate voted the trial was constitutional, he respected that vote as "established precedent."

"As I said on January 6th, the President bears responsibility for these tragic events," Burr said in a statement Saturday explaining his decision. "The President promoted unfounded conspiracy theories to cast doubt on the integrity of a free and fair election because he did not like the results. As Congress met to certify the election results, the President directed his supporters to go to the Capitol to disrupt the lawful proceedings required by the Constitution. When the crowd became violent, the President used his office to first inflame the situation instead of immediately calling for an end to the assault."

Lawrence Tabas, Pennsylvania GOP chair, was also critical of Toomey's vote.

I share the disappointment of many of our grassroots leaders and volunteers over Senator Toomeys vote today," Tabas wrote in a statement. Tabas called the trial an "unconstitutional theft of time and energy that did absolutely nothing to unify or help the American people.

Toomey, who is not running for reelection in 2022, explained his decision in a lengthy Twitter thread, saying that he voted for Trump for president in November because of his administration's "many accomplishments" but that Trump betrayed the Constitution and his oath of office.

"A lawless attempt to retain power by a president was one of the founders greatest fears motivating the inclusion of the impeachment authorities in the U.S. Constitution," Toomey wrote. "Unfortunately, his behavior after the election betrayed the confidence millions of us placed in him."

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Party leaders rip Republicans who voted to convict Trump - POLITICO

The gerrymandering report bookends other analyses, by the Brennan Center and others, documenting how state-level Republicans have introduced some 165 proposals in 33 states this year that would make voting more difficult. These include imposing new voter-identification laws, rolling back access to mail balloting and early-voting periods, and adding new hurdles to the voter-registration process. H.R. 1 and a new VRA, if they become law and survive legal challenges, would preempt almost all of those moves as well.

Read: The decision that will define Democrats for a decade

Given the likelihood that, absent federal intervention, red states will enact severe gerrymanders and new obstacles to voting, the decision about whether to end the Senate filibuster to pass these two bills could shape the future of American politics more than anything else Democrats do in the next two years. If the filibuster remains in place, [H.R. 1] dies in the Senate, Dan Pfeiffer, the former White House communications director for Barack Obama, wrote this week. If that happens, the Republicanswho represent a shrinking minority of Americanswill likely return to power and control politics for the next decade or more.

When Senate Democrats like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and [Dianne] Feinstein oppose getting rid of the filibuster, Pfeiffer added, they are deciding to make it more likely that their time in the majority is ever so brief.

Li told me that, in some respects, partisans may have less opportunity now for aggressive redistricting than they had after the 2010 census, though that may not be true in key states. States draw new lines for congressional districts after each decennial census, and that process is shaped by a complex convergence of legal and political factors.

Republicans leverage over the process seems slightly reduced since the 2010 redistricting. Parties have the greatest freedom to manipulate the lines in states where they control redistricting without input from the other sidealmost always because they hold both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship. (Some states deny the governor any role.) After the 2010 census, Republicans enjoyed this level of control over the drawing of 213 congressional districts. They used their authority to impose extremely one-sided gerrymanders in states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

This time, Republicans hold complete control in states that will draw up to 188 districts. (Democrats, by contrast, completely control the maps in states with up to 74 seats.) The number of seats Republicans will oversee has diminished because they lost unified control of government in some statesincluding Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniaand because Michigan transferred control of redistricting from the state legislature to an independent commission. Additionally, in GOP-controlled Ohio, voters approved an initiative that created redistricting standards that could impede, though not eliminate, gerrymandering.

Excerpt from:
The GOP Cheat Code to Winning Back the House - The Atlantic

Trumps lawyers excused it and gave Republican senators their rationale for acquittal by talking about free speech, but that cast the president of the United States the most powerful person in the world, entrusted with the security of his country as just any old crank spouting off. It minimized his station. It trivialized the stakes. It also overlooked that its not OK to yell fire in a crowded theater, though Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, reminded them of that, describing Jan. 6 as a case where the town fire chief whos paid to put out fires sends a mob not to yell fire! in a crowded theater but to actually set the theater on fire.

The lawyers also turned history on its head, essentially bookending Trumps presidency by minting the precise sorts of alternative facts that Kellyanne Conway smugly heralded at the start. Unlike the left, President Trump has been entirely consistent in his opposition to mob violence, one of his lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said, scaling new summits of preposterousness. Trump blessed mob violence at his campaign rallies. He blessed mob violence in Charlottesville, Va. Hes against mob violence the way Im against spaghetti carbonara. Which is to say that he thrills to it and eats it up.

Both before and during the Senate trial, Trumps defenders asserted that theres no clear causal link between his malfeasance and that police officers screams. But the House Democrats effectively destroyed that argument by documenting not only Trumps words in the days, hours and minutes before the mob attacked but also his long, painstaking campaign to erode trust in democratic processes, so that if those processes didnt favor him, his supporters were primed to junk them. Hes a study in slow-motion treason. Jan. 6 was simply when he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

It was also, in retrospect, the climax that his presidency was always building toward, the inevitable fruit of his meticulous indoctrination of his base, his methodical degradation of American institutions, his romancing of right-wing media and his recruitment of the most ambitious and unscrupulous Republican lawmakers. At his behest, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and several other Republican senators promoted the lethal falsehood that the election was fraudulent, yet that didnt disqualify them from sitting as jurors to render a foregone verdict on a man whose delusions they had already endorsed. What a system. What a farce.

They were distracted, cavalier jurors at that. Rick Scott, who of course voted not guilty, was seen studying and then fiddling with a map or maps of Asia. Dare we dream that hes plotting his own relocation there? Hawley, who also voted not guilty, at one point moved to the visitors gallery above the Senate floor and did some reading there, his feet propped up, his lanky body a pretzel of petulance. What happened to Republicans respect for authority? What happened to basic decency and decorum?

Clinton was a supposedly unendurable offense against that, but then along came Trump, and Republicans decided that decency and decorum were overrated. Truth, too. Heck, everything that they claimed to stand for in the Clinton years was now negotiable, expendable, vestigial. Nothing was beyond the pale.

But that footage was beyond the pale. Did you really look at it, Senators Hawley, Scott and Cruz (yet another not guilty)? Did you see the blood and the terror on that police officers face? Do you honestly contend that theres no connection between Trumps lies refined over years, repeated incessantly and rendered in the most incendiary fashion possible and the officers pain?

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Opinion | Trumps Republicans, Brought to Their Knees - The New York Times

In the hours after Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (LA) and Richard Burr (NC) joined five other Republican senators in voting to convict former President Donald Trump on an article of impeachment for his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection, the state Republican parties in Louisiana and North Carolina wasted no time laying down a marker that the GOP still belongs to Trump.

The LAGOP and NCGOP each quickly censured Cassidy and Burr for their votes. In a statement posted to Twitter, the LAGOP wrote that it condemn[s], in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Sen. Cassidy to convict former President Trump, while NCGOP chair Michael Whatley released a statement denouncing Burrs vote as shocking and disappointing.

Trump won both Louisiana and North Carolina in 2020. Cassidy was loyal to Trump throughout Trumps term in office, but began to distance himself during the impeachment trial, perhaps feeling emboldened by the fact that he just won reelection for another six-year term. Following his vote, he posted a remarkably succinct video statement in which he said, I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.

Burr was also mostly loyal to Trump throughout his term, but is more free than some of his Republican colleagues to vote his conscience, since hes already announced he doesnt plan to run for reelection next year. As Voxs Li Zhou has reported, a recent Vox/Data for Progress poll found 69 percent of Republicans say they are less likely to support a senator who voted to convict Trump. Notably, one of the Republicans running to fill Burrs seat, former Rep. Mark Walker, was quick to post a tweet condemning the senators vote.

Cassidy and Burrs votes to convict were somewhat surprising, given that each of them voted to end the trial before it began on the grounds that convicting a former president of an article of impeachment is unconstitutional. But they were apparently persuaded of Trumps guilt by House impeachment managers.

While Trumps encouragement of the January 6 insurrection and his conduct in the weeks and months leading up to it a period in which he relentlessly pushed lies about election fraud to discredit Joe Bidens victory has been widely condemned, state Republican parties have repeatedly censured Republican lawmakers who have had the temerity to condemn it.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), for instance, was not only censured by the Wyoming Republican Party after she voted in favor of Trumps impeachment but was targeted by staunch Trump loyalist Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in a rally in her home state following her vote. And the Arizona Republican Party censured Republican Gov. Doug Ducey (as well as Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake) simply because the governor was unwilling to work with Trump to invalidate Joe Bidens victory in the state.

While the fact that seven of the 50 Republican senators voted for Trumps conviction indicates his hold over members of his party in that chamber has weakened since he was in office, the quick censures of Cassidy and Barr are reminders that his popularity among grassroots Republicans remains strong.

The series of censures also points to a worrying dynamic that will be at play if Trump decides to run again in 2024. After all, if publicly inciting a violent attack on the legislative branch of the federal government isnt enough to prompt state-level Republicans to break with him, then what, if anything, would?

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Cassidy and Burr were quickly censured for voting for Trumps conviction - Vox.com