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To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/18/2021 10:31:13 AM
From: Mongo2116  Respond to of 85487
 
thanks TRUMP!!!




To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/18/2021 11:24:06 AM
From: Mongo2116  Respond to of 85487
 



To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/18/2021 12:32:43 PM
From: J.B.C.  Respond to of 85487
 
Sorry Skippy, it will stay this way:




To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/18/2021 3:56:22 PM
From: FJB  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 85487
 
You ain't seen nothing yet. Dementia's Depression will make this seem like the Good Ole Days...



To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/19/2021 1:55:48 PM
From: FJB1 Recommendation

Recommended By
John Hayman

  Respond to of 85487
 

What Caused The Texas Energy Crisis?


Politicrossing
Published 30 mins ago on February 19, 2021 By Jesse Stiller

politicrossing.com

Questions arise regarding the failure of the Texas power grid as the state continues to recover from a historic winter storm.

The Current Texas Crisis

New reports from the Texas Tribune on Friday suggest that the state was “Seconds and minutes” away from a “catastrophic” blackout that could have lasted months if grid operators did not take action to stop a massive drop in energy supply.

Unseasonably cold temperatures knocked natural gas and coal plants offline as well as froze wind turbines. As a result, operators had to resort to rolling blackouts to stop the surge in demand from overwhelming its circuits.

Several factors have been blamed for the sudden and severe energy crisis, with fossil-fuel proponents blaming frozen wind turbines and other alternative energy that was frozen over, BBC suggested. Others such as the New York Times have blamed natural gas pipes freezing and pointing responsibility on to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

However, there has been one component of the U.S. power grid that has not been looked into: The equipment itself.

China And The Electrical Grid


An April 2014 report from the Department of Energy found that there were only six domestic manufacturers of power equipment in the United States, while China had 30 manufacturers.

Several Chinese-based companies, such as HICO and Siemens, have plants that export transformers to several countries. The report further suggested that the actual production of U.S.-built transformers was less than a fifth of China’s production.

The report showed that the U.S. has become dependent on foreign-made transformers to maintain capability of the power grid.


“In 2010, only 15 percent of the Nation’s demand for power transformers…was met through domestic production,” the report concluded.

In 2019, deputy director of counterintelligence at the DOE said that “There have been over 200 Chinese transformers that have come into the U.S. energy sector in the last ten years,” according to RealClearEnergy, highlighting the country’s dependence on energy.

One of the companies who makes these transformers, JiangSu HuaPeng Transformer Co., recently finished projects in Houston. The city was among the hardest hit in the recent energy crisis.

Trump’s Executive Order


On May 1, 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that essentially made the U.S. power grid “America First” by allowing the Secretaries of Defense, Interior and Homeland Security along with the Director of National intelligence to identify equipment that was designed and owned by foreign jurisdictions, including China.

The E.O. aimed to prevent future transactions regarding the supplementation or manufacturing of any equipment that under “foreign adversary control.”


“The transaction…poses and undue risk of sabotage to or subversion of the design, integrity…or manufacturing of the bulk-power system in the United States.” The E.O. read in part.

The order would allow the appropriate departments to “identify” the equipment and “isolate or monitor” their behavior. A task force also formed to focus on vulnerabilities and procurement of the power system of the U.S.

The order may have stemmed from a report regarding the “Electric Panda” hacking group. POLITICO reported that the group had targeted 40 U.S. contracting facilities that specialize in numerous fields.

The U.S. energy secretary at the time also prohibited utilities that supply facilities from importing items from China. Secretary Dan Brouillette said that it was “imperative” the power system was secure from attacks and exploitation.

Biden Reverses Course


On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, he issued an executive order seeking to address the Keystone XL pipeline. In the bottom part of the order, the action also suspended Trump’s order for 90 days to consider if a replacement should be issued.

The provision reportedly allows China to continue exporting transformers to the United States without any issues. It also comes on the heels of reports that Chinese hackers used the SolarWinds bug to spy on U.S. payrolls.


The order remains suspended until April, when the order will be replaced or expire. It is not clear what the Biden administration will replace the order with, if at all.

Before the winter storm, Biden approved an emergency declaration for Texas in the event of the worst. However, Biden’s response to the power outages has been slow, with new authorizations only coming yesterday regarding deliveries of supplies.

What Happens Next? The situation in Texas, albeit caused mainly by unprecedented weather conditions, could have been mitigated significantly. The use of Chinese-built transformers may have had a role in exactly why the power grid catastrophically failed.

Although it’s unlikely a cyberattack may have caused the grid to undergo immense stress, the use of such technology should be of concern. The vulnerabilities of the U.S. power grid are now on display in the south and should not go unnoticed.



To: J.B.C. who wrote (85000)2/21/2021 10:19:42 AM
From: J.B.C.1 Recommendation

Recommended By
FJB

  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 85487
 
In the category of “You own it” file:

thefederalist.com

31 Days In, Democrats Haven't Accomplished A Single COVID Promise


February 20, 2021 By Christopher Bedford

The Democratic Party woke up Saturday morning to its 31st day of leading both the executive and legislative branches of government. They had run on “immediate [economic] relief” to Americans put down and out by largely Democratic COVID shutdowns. Relief, you might notice, that hasn’t actually come.

On Jan. 14, less than one week before taking the oath of office, President Joe Biden promised, “We’ll make sure that our emergency small business relief is distributed swiftly and equitably, unlike the first time around. We’re going to focus on small businesses, on Main St. We’ll focus on minority-owned small businesses, women-owned small businesses.”

But so far in the first full month that Sen. Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Biden have been in control, the only money that has gone toward American relief has been from that money allocated while President Donald Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell still joined Pelosi in power, including $1 trillion that remains unspent.

Instead of their promised relief, over the past month Democrats have tried the former president, re-entered the Paris Climate Accords, locked down the U.S. Capitol, and freed up American tax dollars to go to aborting children abroad.

So what about American business owners, parents, and workers suffering under COVID-19 restrictions? Anything for them? So far nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. President Joe Biden has mandated masks on busses, for example, and Vice President Kamala Harris has claimed credit for the Trump administration’s vaccine development. Biden has also established a COVID board, created a COVID task force, developed a COVID plan, reviewed COVID, assessed COVID, and held a COVID town hall. Lovely.

“Our rescue plan will provide flexible grants to help those hardest-hit small businesses survive the pandemic,” Biden promised more than five weeks ago. His administration, he said, would “help entrepreneurs of all backgrounds create and maintain jobs, plus provide the essential goods and services communities depend upon.”

Instead, at this week’s CNN town hall Biden told Wisconsin brewer Tim Eichinger, a Democrat who is struggling to keep his employees on and his business afloat, to give White House staff his address so they could mail him that COVID plan — the one he laid out five weeks ago. It’s the same one Democrats have been sitting on for a month while they fight over things like a $15 national minimum wage hike unlikely to pass the Senate and which even the president admitslikely isn’t going anywhere.

Whether it does or doesn’t will be no help to Tim Eichinger. Nor will taxpayer money for abortion, nor any of the other completely unrelated left-wing projects jammed into this apparently necessary COVID relief.

Meanwhile, a Republican push for domestic abuse survivors to not have to go through their former abusers for access to their checks was denied by Democrats. So too was a push for schools to even have a plan to reopen their doors before receiving money. So too is Republicans’ completely accurate complaint that there is still $1 trillion in unspent relief money allocated by the last Congress.

In exchange for electing him president of the United States, Biden promised “immediate relief to Americans hardest hit and most in need.” But promises are cheap, and one whole month into his administration he hasn’t accomplished a single bit of it.