The Felon

 

I was talking with a former executive director of a renewable energy trade association that we founded back in the 1980s.  We have worked together for 40 years developing the renewable energy industry here in Texas.  And we did a pretty good job. As of today on the ERCOT scoreboard, there is just under 40 GWs of wind capacity and just over 20 GWs of solar capacity.  Plus there is about 6 GWs of storage.  All of this on a 90 GW system.

That means as of 2:00 PM on Sunday in early June, almost 50% of the total electrical energy consumed in Texas is Renewable Energy.  Natural Gas is 38%, Coal is just over 5% and Nuclear is 7.5 %.

And right now, prices are about $15/MWH.  That's 1.5 cents per Kwh.

So, even though the R's of Texas want to slow this growth down, they are going to have a tough time given the support that is coming from Washington and President Biden as he continues to make fighting climate change with clean affordable energy a big part of his governing.

Here in Austin, we are about 60% wind, solar, and biomass right now.

When we started the conversation, I for some reason said that I was expecting a decision out of the state court in New York regarding the FPOTUS's 34 charges. My long time colleague opined that the best we can hope for is a hung jury.  He reasoned that a guilty charge would be unlikely and that an acquittal seemed remote given the mountain of evidence that the jury had at their disposal. Based on his political calculus, he reasoned that a guilty verdict would just create a turnout boost for the R's and that a hung jury might be best we can hope for.

By the time we hung up, the news was breaking.  

Trump was guilty on all 34 counts.

I immediately turned over to Fox to see if they were even covering it.  They were.

And soon, all of the R's were singing from the Trump Choir Book.  He did nothing wrong.  The case was rigged. The judge was a Democrat.  (Apparently Trump can only get a fair trial from Republicans.) All of them seemingly blind to the irony that the President's son is going to be on Trial  soon for signing a form that says he's not on drugs as he attempts to buy a gun while he's clearly on drugs. 

Had the New York jury acquitted, it would have been a stunning affirmation of the  fairness and strength of our Justice System. Even a hung jury would have been exoneration in their eyes. But Guilty?  It's a sham.

As George Conway so effectively states, the Rs are suffused with Lies:

During an appearance on CNN, Conway slapped down Republican claims that Trump is the victim of a political prosecution by laying out how Trump's actions led to him becoming a convicted felon.

"I mean, if you don't want to be found guilty of falsifying business records as a felony, don't sleep with the porn star, don't lie about it, don't pay her off, don't cover up the payoff, don't cover up the payoff in the middle of a presidential campaign," he said.

Conway then turned his attention to the other alleged crimes for which Trump has been indicted.

"If you don't want to be indicted for overthrowing the Constitution, don't start a self-coup," he said. "If you don't want to be indicted for stealing classified documents and obstructing justice, don't take the classified documents. When the government asked for it back, give them back. If the FBI serves you with a search warrant, don't hide the documents and don't lie about it and don't have your lawyers lie about it. 

This isn't that hard. 

Donald Trump is not the victim here!"

CNN's Jennings made the argument that Trump's convictions would only help him politically since they were done at the behest of a Democratic New York prosecutor, but Conway argued that Jennings' response is everything that is wrong with the current Republican Party and the conservative movement as a whole.

"This is the problem with the Republican Party: They are suffused with lies," he said. "I don't know why this network is paying Scott to say those lies."

This drew a brushback from host Kasie Hunt, who chided Conway for calling Jennings a liar on live TV.

"Scott is our colleague and we're going to treat him respectfully as such!" she insisted.

"Well he shouldn't lie!" Conway shot back.

The R litmus tests these days are stunningly simple and undemocratic to the core.  You must agree that the 2020 election was stolen, that Jan 6 was not a violent attempt to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, and that if they do not win the 2024 election, it too is not legitimate.  It's rather straightforward, R criminal leaders must be tried by R criminal followers, and if they lose, it must be because it was stolen. In other words, they no longer play by the rules.

This is a recipe for a dis-functional democracy and the R's know it. As a minority, they must break our crucible of democracy.

But will this conviction help the R's?

Morning Consult found this on Friday:

• Over half of voters (54%) approve of the 12 jurors’ historic decision to convict the former president on 34 felony charges related to a 2016 hush-money scheme with adult actress Stormy Daniels. A similar share believes Trump committed a crime.

• Our Friday survey showed that just 15% of Republican voters nationwide want Trump to drop his White House bid.

JUST Fifteen percent want him to drop his bid for the White House?

This is going to hurt somebody politically.

And it's the Felon. 

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