How do folks know if their AC is using up $275/MWh vs $2500/MWh? Text alerts?
It’s around $90/MWh around here.
It’s not a great theory, as I noted.
And when it’s over 100 deg outside and it doesn’t dip below 80 even overnight, it’s not like they’ve got a lot of actual choice, either.
“Something, something magic of the market” doesn’t work in a lot of cases but try telling that to anybody and it’s “socialist” this and “freedom” that
Glad we have set pricing. Spot pricing that can surge to $2.50 per kWh is crazy!
Yeah, the “wonders” of deregulation.
A lot of homeowners have contracts with set prices but some folks let those expire or they prefer the spot pricing. To be fair, it is often lower than what you can get on contract. But during heatwaves it can really spike.
But that’s exactly when you want to even things out. It’s one of those areas where the wisdom of the market doesn’t necessarily line up with values like human health or dignity.
Wow, an engraved invitation to graft and corruption for sure. The system here isn’t perfect, of course – what system created and run by humans ever is? – but it’s a darn sight less structurally open to such a mess.
Of course, Texas also has the problem that, in its fierce adherence to independence, it has refused to link into power grids outside the state.
They confused free electrons with free elections.
…
Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission has neared the end of a chaotic and overburdened process to remove people from state Medicaid insurance who became ineligible during the coronavirus pandemic. The state had not unenrolled people before this year because of federal pandemic rules, which forbid states from cutting coverage.As a result, more than 5 million Texans had continuous access to health care throughout the pandemic through Medicaid, the joint federal-and-state-funded insurance program for low-income individuals. In Texas, the program’s eligibility criteria is so restrictive, it mainly covers poor children, their mothers while pregnant and post partum, and disabled and senior adults.
But the effects of speedrunning this process have reverberated: Still-eligible Texans were kicked off both in error and for procedural reasons, adding to backlogs of hundreds of thousands of Medicaid applications and pushing wait times back several months. Backlogs for SNAP food benefits applications, which the same state agency also manages, also skyrocketed because of the burden.
“The state handled this with an incredible amount of incompetence and indifference to poor people,” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, told The Texas Tribune. “It’s really appalling.”
…
My bold.
Damn those Feds for butting into the bidness of Texas. We’ll show them!
- Incompetence-- check!
- Indifference to poor people-- check!
I’m sure Abbott’s telling them it’s Biden’s fault.
And not by accident they (TX officialdom) assure us. It’s fun to be proud of kicking the poors. A$$holes.
In a little bit of good news from our reactionary dystopian state government, Ken Paxton and his aides have been ordered to sit of depositions in a lawsuit brought by fired whistleblowers. It was Paxton’s attempt to settle this lawsuit with taxpayer money that was the igniting incident that led the Texas House to impeach him. Of course, he’s proven extraordinarily adept at throwing sand in the gears of justice – he’s kept his indictment for securities fraud from reaching trial for TEN YEARS.
A group called Texas Values Action, a defender of “biblical Judeo-Christian” values as well as “faith, family and freedom” has announced its endorsement of state rep Tony Tinderholt in 2024.
“We are excited to endorse for re-election
@reptinderholt
for State Rep, HD 94! Tony has been a proven leader for #ReligiousFreedom, #ProLife issues, and marriage & family during his time serving in #TxLege.”
Tinderholt, who once introduced a bill to criminalize abortion after fertilization and make it possible to charge both the woman and doctor with murder, is in fact strongly pro-marriage - he’s been married 5 times - twice to the same woman (who got a restraining order against him for threatening her, causing bodily harm/injury and destroying shared property according to Wikipedia.*
*as far as his pro-marriage history, I’m reminded of W.C. Fields commenting on how easy it is to stop drinking (“I’ve done it a thousand times”).
Asshole General Paxton is trying to demand that Seattle Children’s Hospital turn over the records of any fugitive slaves Texan children who received gender-affirming care.
Is Paxton going to go after every hospital in the country?
I know he’s a criminal asshole but that’s just being a fucking creep.
That is mind-boggling and horrifying.
(P.S. Happy cake day, @Smapti!)
Of course he wants to. He doesn’t seem to understand he is governor of only Texas.
Next up: reproductive care records to ferret out abortions given to Texan women in other states.
He’s not the governor of anything; he’s the Attorney General.
Even worse.
And even worse, known to be massively corrupt.
He’s literally been dodging legal action for more than a decade now, though that window may be closing. And it’s why he was impeached (though not tossed out) recently. You know you have to be a complete loser asshole if the Republicans of Texas vote to impeach you. And you know the Texas GOP has to also be full of loser assholes if they don’t follow that up by kicking him to the curb