The Morning Dispatch: GOP Warms To Jan 6 Commission

Plus: Texans struggle with power outages as state politicians point fingers.

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Happy Thursday! A big thank you to everyone who joined us for Dispatch Live last night—we had a blast! If you missed the conversation, or want to watch it again, it is available to members here.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The Justice Department charged three North Korean hackers on Wednesday with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud for their alleged attempts to steal more than $1.3 billion from banks and businesses around the world. “North Korea’s operatives, using keyboards rather than masks and guns, are the world’s leading 21st-century nation-state bank robbers,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers.

  • The Albany Times-Union reports that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is being investigated by the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office for its alleged mishandling of COVID-19 nursing home deaths. Democratic New York Assemblyman Ron Kim told CNN yesterday that Cuomo called him last week and told him “he can destroy me.”

  • President Biden on Wednesday spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since assuming office last month. According to a White House readout of the call, the two discussed Iran, normalized relations between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

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  1. Richard Palzer

    A bipartisan committee sounds like a better effort than what's likely to occur. Given the make-up of the Republican majority still backing Trump and Trumpism, it's hard to imagine they'd go along with a conclusion that holds Trump responsible, despite how convincing the evidence. They've already denounced their few members who had the courage and moral compass to vote against Trump, so I wouldn't trust a change from partisan--not to mention, cowardly and self-serving--to objectivity. They'd probably question the bipartisan make-up of such a committee when the damning--and accurate--determination of Trump's guilt is validated. The Party is broken--sadly, the split is on moral and ethical grounds, and those who advocate restoring it are not only in the minority but repudiated. Hope for reform was quashed by McConnell, who, despite his scathing denunciation of Trump's provoking the insurrection, weakly gave fellow Republicans excuse to absolve Trump on technical grounds of jurisdiction. Shame on them.

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  2. Mary Stine

    News from the Texas front: power is back on for many of us in South Texas, water still iffy and in short supply in bottles. Good news: hubby and I got our 2nd dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine today after surviving 4 days of off and on power in a well-insulated small hotel room. I had my TD tee shirt with me for the last two days and the vaccine (both times) and now regard it as a good luck item!
    What have I learned that changed my mind? An engineer on the commentary explained why solar panels don't always work as planned, changing my mind about what they could do.
    Several commenters who are devout Catholics have improved my understanding about church doctrine and how the devout try to follow that. Commenters in the medical field changed my mind about the realities of the virus and the realities of many people responding to those.
    Our resident gonzo political humorist spins my head everyday about what is funny. People more conservative than I have shown me that we have more common than I thought.

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  3. Dan Sides

    Yes and yes on the Commission. Has to be bipartisan to have credibility and needs to have subpoena power. The truth is out there. It needs to be known to all.

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    The Bell Tower

    Nancy Pelosi rivals Donald Trump in the damage she is doing to partisanship in Congress. Let’s hope she retires and passes the chair onto someone who can actually bridge gaps and work across party lines. Tip O’Neil wanted to raise my taxes, he didn’t hate my guts.

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  5. deathtomcmansions

    Yes to a commission, the evidence needs to be permanently preserved and collected. But I have my doubts as to how much it will change minds, at least in the short time. Jan 6 SHOULD go down in the annals as a terrible day, worse to me than 9/11 -- it was something rotten from inside our own country, and it was so sacrilegious (in a secular way) to our founding documents. And you don't find and correct failures if you ignore the evidence that points the way to them.

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    Rev Snow

    I never would have guessed that Lee Hamilton is still alive. Is he in good condition to take on such a project?

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      Rev Snow

      Maybe a more recent retiree from public service would make more sense? How about Harold Ford, Jr. ?

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  7. Cscott glider

    There is a difference between use and capacity that the dispatch fact checker didn’t reference but is referenced in a wsj article:

    Wind tur­bines at times this month have gen­er­ated more than half of the Texas power gen­er­a­tion, though this is only about a quar­ter of the sys­tem’s power ca­pac­ity. Last week wind gen­er­a­tion plunged as de­mand surged. Fos­sil-fuel gen­er­a­tion in­creased and cov­ered the sup­ply gap. Thus be­tween the morn­ings of Feb. 7 and Feb. 11, wind as a share of the state’s elec­tric­ity fell to 8% from 42%, ac­cord­ing to the En­ergy In­for­ma­tion Ad­min­is-tra­tion (EIA). Gas-fired plants pro-duced 43,800 MW of power Sun­day night and coal plants chipped in 10,800 MW—about two to three times what they usu­ally gen­er­ate at their peak on any given win­ter day—af­ter wind power had largely van­ished. In other words, gas and coal plants held up in the frosty con­di­tions far bet­ter than wind tur­bines did.

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  8. christycronin

    The reporting in this Dispatch is inconsistent with yesterday’s Fact Check on the role of wind power as a contributor to the energy shortage we’re seeing in Texas. Today’s Dispatch reports that renewables (primarily wind and solar I presume) account for 18 gigawatts of the 45 gigawatt shortage (about 40 percent) but yesterday’s Fact Check estimated it to be only about 13 percent. I’m sure you’re accurately reporting the data that’s presented to you, but do you have any idea why the numbers are so far apart?

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    Richard Maxton

    Before I dive too deep into the endless well of Dispatch comments I'd like to draw attention to the kindness, charity, and endless generosity of Mattress Mack down in Houston. For those not in the know, that's the "screen name" of Jim McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston, Tx.

    The man has opened his businesses repeatedly as places of refuge - complete with free food, clothes, blankets and use of the show floor furniture - during times of crisis in the area whether it be a hurricane or cold snap.
    He's always at the front of the line offering support to the area. I remember during Hurricane Katrina he sent volunteers out with his delivery trucks to rescue folks stranded in their homes and trapped by floodwaters, brought them back to his stores, and made sure they were fed and given a safe place to rest.
    He's doing it again now. God bless Mattress Mack. We need more like him. Take a second if you can to read about it. It'll make you feel better: https://abc13.com/houston-mattress-mack-texas-furniture-store-gallery-weather/10350240/

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    Julie from Texas

    Texan here. Houston area. Without power for 3 days, but it's finally back on. It's amazing how many non-Texas residents have all kinds of ideas about how our culture and governance have made Icemageddon into an even worse event. Some of those ideas are true. Certainly, The Dispatch did a good job of reporting on the event. However, I also hear plenty of people down here saying, "The problem with California is..." or "The problem with New York is..." and, while they are right about some things, they're just wrong about others. I don't think we should write off a whole state of people like that.

    Yes, our companies didn't properly winterize, and they should have, even though events like this happen maybe once a decade (while hurricanes and heat waves happen far more often where I live). Our electric reliability council did not properly regulate, and they need to be held accountable. Our citizens don't know how to deal with this kind of cold, because we rarely see it. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems we have experienced were preventable—and winterizing likely costs less in the long run than all of this—but it's not because Texans are bad or stupid or whatever. We have governance problems like everyone else.

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      Richard Maxton

      Fellow Texan here Julie (though I'm currently up in Seattle). Glad to hear you're safe and (at least on the way) to warm again.
      Couldn't agree with you more. I give California a lot of grief. It's a good reminder that that sort of "bird's eye" view can blind you to the reality on the ground. Thank you.

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