250 People Fight For Possibly Spoiled Dumpster Food During Power Outage In Greg Abbott's Texas
People have now been without power longer than they were in 2021.
More than 400,000 people in Texas lost power last week due to the deadly ice storm that swept the Southern Plains and Southeast.
Tens of thousands of Texans are still without power, officially surpassing the three days many of them lost power during the outages of 2021 — and Austin city officials are now saying that some 30,000 homes and businesses might not get their electricity back for another week. This is a huge deal for people who need to go to work, cook food, and generally function like a person living in the year 2023.
Unlike the power outages of 2021, these outages have reportedly not been caused by a lack of power on the power grid, but rather by infrastructure and downed wires. They were also, just to be clear, not caused by drag queens or trans kids or abortion or white kids being told that racism exists or anything else high up on the Republican Party's list of immediate concerns.
So far, there have been seven deaths reported from the ice storm, but we probably won't know the full toll until much later. The 2021 outage led to the deaths of more than 100 people.
Things have gotten so bad over in Gov. Greg Abbott's Texas that people were mass dumpster diving this weekend in the parking lot of an Austin H-E-B grocery store that had to throw out a ton of refrigerated food due to the power loss. Someone took notice and posted on social media that there was free food in their dumpster, and more than 250 people showed up to claim some for themselves.
"This is not free food!" Travis County Constable George Morales III said in a post on Facebook. "We had over 250 people fighting in the dumpsters because someone posted 'Free Food!' The food is rotten and spoiled, and is unsafe to eat. Our deputies and APD responded to roads that were gridlocked because of this false post. The area was cleared by our office. If you know someone that got food, let them know it is not safe."
Morales later clarified that he did not mean people were physically fighting each other, as several news outlets ended up reporting, but that they were fighting to grab the free food for themselves. Still, this certainly says a lot about how the state is taking care of its residents during this difficult time. Perhaps instead of spending so much time trying to throw people in prison for taking abortion pills, the state government could start working on having better infrastructure and emergency protocols so this kind of thing doesn't happen. Texas has more power outages than any other state, so one would think this would be at least some kind of priority.
An H-E-B spokesperson explained that the reason they tossed the food and didn't give it to a food bank was that “the store was unable to keep certain perishable foods at proper temperatures. To adhere to strict food quality and safety standards, we are required to dispose of certain perishable foods when they are not properly temperature controlled, which also prevents us from donating the items to food pantries and food banks.”
That being said, given the freezing temperatures in the state this weekend, much of the food was probably fine, at least the food that wasn't raw meat.
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LA Mayor Karen Bass Moving Unhoused People 'Inside Safe,' For A Start
No more police sweeps, either.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was sworn in on December 12 and immediately declared a state of emergency to address homelessness. The week before Christmas, she signed an executive order launching a new initiative called "Inside Safe" aimed at getting unhoused people out of camps and into temporary housing in motel rooms while the city provides them social services and help them find more permanent housing.
The program is voluntary and enlists outreach workers to persuade people to accept rehousing, rather than the notorious police sweeps that just come in and bust up camps to clear people out. Bass said during the presser announcing Inside Safe that police were not leading the operations, and that she didn't want anyone ticketed or punished just for being homeless.
"The role of the police is if they are needed" she said. "To be clear, this is a housing-based strategy. This is not a punitive strategy."
The LA Times reported that one of the first operations to rehouse people from a camp under an underpass, on December 21, went smoothly because the city already had rooms available and buses to take people to nearby motels. Eleven of the 25 people in the camp went to one hotel, bringing up to two bags of belongings along. More from the Times:
“The pace at which Inside Safe can bring people indoors from encampments across the city will largely depend on the availability of beds,” said Cheri Todoroff, executive director of Los Angeles County’s Homeless Initiative. “What the city is doing that will likely be a game changer is accelerating housing placements, both in interim and permanent housing.”
More buildings master-leased — a process in which the city would take control of entire hotels or motels — means more people off the streets. But it remains to be seen whether the city can lease enough beds to meaningfully reduce or eliminate large encampments across Los Angeles.
It sounds like a pretty good approach? Bass's executive order emphasizes the "housing first" nature of the program, so that
Once in interim housing, social service agencies will provide wrap-around care to each participant to transition those previously living in encampments into permanent housing, improve their wellbeing, and promote their stability. Such an effort will simultaneously enhance the safety and hygiene of our neighborhoods for all residents, businesses, and neighbors.
The order also directed city officials to prepare a report by March creating a "unit acquisition strategy, including master leasing for both interim and permanent housing options.”
The LA Times notes that Bass's first-day emergency order, which was later authorized by the City Council,
gives her a lot more flexibility to quickly commit city funds toward leasing motel and hotel rooms. City officials said Bass currently has about $20 million at her disposal that could be put toward leasing beds quickly.
More funds could be made available to her, but that would require more input from the council.
The Inside Safe program builds on work done last year by Va Lecia Adams Kellum of the St. Joseph Center in Venice, which rented motel rooms for about 200 people living in a large encampment that had been the target of complaints by businesses and residents. Adams Kellum is now part of Bass's transition team, and in an interview with the Times, she
said that of the 213 people moved off Ocean Front Walk, 109 have found permanent housing. She added that it’s much easier to get people paired with a housing subsidy and into permanent housing if they’re indoors already.
"She knows housing has to be a part of it,” Adams Kellum said of Bass and her team’s work. “I know she’s lining that up because she knows you can’t go into an encampment sincerely without [the motel bed] in hand.”
Also too, to jump-start the creation of more affordable housing in Los Angeles, Bass's emergency declaration will streamline the approval process for building affordable housing. The city will have to complete its authorization process for new applications within 60 days, and once construction actually starts, the city will have to complete permits within five days.
Bass's biggest challenge, as the New Yorker points out, will be overcoming "the sort of hyperlocal homeowner resistance that is the lifeblood of the city’s politics."
Perhaps Bass’s streamlined power will be able to circumvent some of that and deliver real wins for her homelessness agenda, but the homeowners associations will certainly let Bass know that she is in for a fight.
But as that article also points out, Bass's approach aims at unifying what up until now has been a highly fragmented mishmash of city responses to homelessness, so that if all she's able to accomplish is to "smooth out the absurdly parochial and bureaucratic nature of Los Angeles city politics, she will have achieved a major victory." Given Gov. Gavin Newsom's commitment to creating more affordable housing statewide and to get unhoused people into housing with supportive services — with an extra $2.2 billion in funding requested on top of the $12 billion previously approved — California may actually be starting to create real long-term solutions.
[LAT / New Yorker / CBS News / Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles / KABC / Video Screenshot: Fox 11 Los Angeles on YouTube]
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Nevada Wingnut Militia Grifter Michele Fiore Now A Judge, F*ck It, Why Not
May all her cases involve sovereign citizens.
Michele Fiore, the former Nevada state assemblywoman and Las Vegas city councilwoman who despite being a pioneer of the Christmas Gun Greetings genre and an early adopter of full transgender panic never quite became the national GOP star she so clearly wanted to be — at least, not yet — lost another statewide campaign in November, this time for state treasurer. Yr Wonkette would like to apologize for having missed that campaign. It must have been a doozy, what with her colorful history of huge IRS tax liens (her ex-husband's fault, she said) and her failed home-health business, which had its license revoked after she refused to show state regulators her financial records during an investigation of alleged Medicaid fraud.
Other career highlights include the time she actually did some good for once and talked down some of the last Bundy Militia Loons at the 2016 Oregon wildlife sanctuary standoff. Despite that feather in her cap, she didn't win the congressional race she was running at the time. That may have something to do with the TV interview where she said it was fine to shoot federal officers, but only if they were doing tyranny to you.
SO MUCH FIORE CRAY-CRAY
Idiot Nevada Lawmaker Michele Fiore Decks The Halls With Guns, Tits, More Guns
Nevada Rep. Michele Fiore Has Girl Parts On Her Nakedness Area, And So Should You!
Nevada Wingnut Rep. Michele Fiore Stoled All The Money From Medicaid, Maybe
Idiot Nevada Lawmaker Michele Fiore's Grifty Home Healthcare Business Goes Tits Up
Oregon Standoff Ends In Arrests, Disappointment At Failure To Spark Revolution
Michele Fiore At War With Pussy Nevada Cops Who Lack The Balls To Let Her Shoot Them
In conclusion, what a nut! Oh, wait, she's actually in the news again:
Fiore quickly rebounded from her latest electoral disappointment by getting herself appointed a judge last week, although she lacks any real qualifications like a law degree or what most normal humans might consider a moral sense. But she's very good at far-right morality, what with all the support for insurrectionists and domestic terrorists like the Bundy family, so that should be plenty good enough. As the Associated Press reports, she'll be serving on the Pahrump Justice Court in Nye County through 2024. Pahrump is about 65 miles west of Las Vegas, and mostly famous for 10- to 12-year old kids saying its second syllable really loud.
The AP offers this some-holds-barred summary of the most recent parts of Fiore's ... err ... colorful career:
Her appointment to the bench over 17 other applicants marks the latest chapter in a decade-long political career marked by scandal – including reports of an FBI probe into her campaign finances and accusations of physical assault.
In a pitch to Nye County commissioners Tuesday night, Fiore said she would approach the judgeship with “integrity and honesty” because she has “been at the end of the political barrel.”
FBI agents subpoenaed records and searched Fiore’s home last year in northwest Las Vegas in connection with her campaign spending, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Earlier this year, she was sued by Las Vegas Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, who accused Fiore of breaking her finger in a physical fight at City Hall in January. The two were once good friends and close political allies.
The story also notes her longtime fandom of the Bundys' Nevada and Oregon standoffs, her tax troubles, and the fact that she entered the treasurer's race in March, on the last possible day to file, "after campaigning for months as a Republican gubernatorial hopeful." She's a free spirit that way.
Her ascent to the bench is just one more of those trademark moments of spontaneity, it seems, since she only moved to Pahrump in November, after losing the treasurer's race to incumbent Democrat Zach Conine. Pretty inspiring that in America, anyone can move to a new town and become a judge, at least after they've been in every corner of rightwing media for over a decade.
After winning unanimous support of the Nye County commissioners last week, Fiore said she's
ready to start a new life as “a Pahrump girl.” She detailed plans of living on a 2-acre lot that she said she had purchased over the summer, as well as completing a bachelor’s degree and taking the Nevada State Bar exam in the future.
We wish Judge Fiore the best of luck in all her future endeavors, and may most of her cases involve sovereign citizens who demand she prove that the Constitution gives her any authority over them. Maybe she'll demand that her own courtroom's flag have no gold fringe on it.
It's your OPEN THREAD. Please try not to be sexist pigs just because Fiore's a jerk, you.
[AP]
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We Don’t Love The Winter Weather
It’s damn cold, and people don’t have power or water.
The person in the song “Let It Snow” is a selfish creep. When the weather outside is frightful, it doesn’t matter how delightful your own fire is. Other people exist in the world and are greatly inconvenienced, if not in mortal peril. Dozens of people so far have died during the massive winter storm that battered the US on Friday, and millions were left without power.
There were more than 2,600 flight cancellations nationwide as of Christmas Eve, and more than 6,000 flights were delayed, which is the “It’s Complicated” relationship status setting just before cancellation. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is among the most impacted airports, presumably because of the weather, but from personal experience, the Atlanta airport is a mess under the clearest skies.
Two people died Friday in New York’s Erie County because emergency medical personnel simply couldn’t reach their homes in time. Buffalo, where four feet of snow accumulated by Christmas, had recorded 25 weather-related deaths by Monday morning, and the blizzard conditions had left the state resembling a “war zone.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared, "This is a war with mother nature and she has been hitting us with everything she has" since Thursday.
Hochul is a Buffalo native not a Miami transplant, but the storm’s magnitude and impact still shocked her, especially the number of stranded card on the side of the road.
One family with young children — aged 2 to 6 — had to wait for 11 hours before being rescued in the early hours of Christmas Day.
"I was basically just hopeless," the father, Zila Santiago, told CBS News. He said he had managed to stay warm by keeping the engine running and kept distress at bay by playing games with the children.
More victims are expected to be discovered once melting snowdrifts reveal trapped vehicles and allow access to remote homes.
This is horrifying, but unfortunately, snowstorms aren’t the only way that extreme weather conditions can endanger lives. Although the snowfall in Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis and Nashville in Tennessee, and even Birmingham, Alabama, was measured in inches not feet, the frigid temperatures froze water pipes in many areas. Even Floridians were worried about exposed pipes icing over as temperatures dropped below freezing for the first time in five years. (It’s been 12 years since Tampa Bay experienced temperatures this cold for an extended period.)
City officials in Jackson, Mississippi, announced on Christmas Day that residents should boil their water now due to burst water lines.
“Please check your businesses and churches for leaks and broken pipes, as these add up tremendously and only worsen the problem,” the city said in a statement, adding: “We understand the timing is terrible.”
Here in Portland, Oregon, we worried the powerful winds would down trees and take out power lines. We personally lucked out and remained warm, but my friends down south were less fortunate. Tennessee residents endured rolling blackouts with 10-minute outages imposed every few hours. Thousands lacked power before the Christmas weekend when temperatures in Nashville were below zero — colder than Portland! — after sunrise.
Memphis, Tennessee, initiated rolling blackouts on Christmas Eve (ho! ho! ho!) that somewhat overlapped with a somewhat contradictory boil water advisory. Memphis Light, Gas and Water had equipment failures that resulted in outages lasting longer than expected. Kayla Watson from Memphis was without power for two excruciating days, and ice started to build up in her tub.
"The whole bottom of the tub is glazed over with ice,” she said. “The pipes, even though I had the water dripping, the pipes are frozen, there is no getting water in or out,” she said.”
This shitshow storm (not an official meteorological term) is a “once-in-a-generation” event, according to the National Weather Service. The extreme cold was fueled by a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when atmospheric pressure drops suddenly during a powerful storm. The bomb cyclone developed near the Great Lakes, unleashing the blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
However, these “once-in-a-generation” events are occurring with increasing regularity, and it’s a good thing that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats passed a major infrastructure bill that will help states adjust and cope as weather grows more severe.
Let’s hope power is soon restored everywhere, and there’s no further loss of life.
[CNN]
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