In addition to pointing out this meme’s amnesia of CA electric grid failures, the water crisis is not in all of MS, it’s in Jackson. Which has a Democratic mayor and 6/7 council members are Democrats.
https://ballotpedia.org/Jackson,_Mississippi#City_council
▪️As for TX’s electric grid, it ironically has the most renewable energy production of any state, particularly for wind. This has made the grid highly vulnerable to periods when wind drops off, and highly dependent on gas as its only reliable backup.
https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=TX
▪️In 2009, coal-fired plants generated ~37% of Texas’s electricity while wind provided ~6%. Since then, 3 Texas coal-fired plants have closed & the use of wind power has more than quadrupled In the same period, energy consumption rose by 20%.
https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php
▪️To pre-empt the objection that it was gas and not renewables that failed in the great freeze of ‘21, this ignores that wind and solar provided virtually 0 power during the crisis (chart posted in comments). They would have been far worse off with more renewables, not better. Many areas with far harsher winters have resilient fossil fuel grids.
▪️And there are no new plans for additional nuclear or coal plants in TX, only more solar and wind (and some gas for backup). Thus, in a sense Republicans have screwed up their electric grid, but not in the sense this meme would assume.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/01/11/to-keep-up-with-growth-texas-needs-more-big-baseload-electric-power-plants/
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
