Falsehoods Unchallenged Only Fester and Grow
https://thefogbow.com/forum/
This article has the details on the settlement and the payouts. " Abbott can expect to receive about $570,000 from the structured settlement {ed. per year!}, whose proceeds are tax-free and do not have to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service."
And other "tort reform" that would preclude Plaintiffs similar situated to Abbott from pursuing their legal remedies.
Some details about the case; Abbott alleged negligence:pipistrelle wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:13 pm Why would he get any payout? Accident of nature/act of God. Take your pick.
The accident happened on July 14, 1984, when Abbott, then a 26-year-old law school graduate, was jogging. As he ran through the affluent River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, a giant post oak tree snapped at its base and fell, striking Abbott in the back.
The 75-foot tree crushed his spine, leaving him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
Abbott sued the homeowner whose tree fell on him — Roy W. Moore, a go-to divorce lawyer for affluent Houstonians — and the Davey Tree Expert Company, which had inspected the tree for Moore. Abbott alleged that Moore and the tree company were negligent for failing to warn people about the dangerous tree or to take action to prevent it from falling.
* * *
Moore was not at home when the tree fell on Abbott. But Moore, now retired, said in a recent telephone interview that he had been shocked to learn that the towering oak had rotted from the inside.
“I had walked outside the morning before, and it looked green as a gourd,” he said. “I had no idea the thing was hollow.”
Moore said he never thought — and still does not think — that he had any liability. He also believes he would have won the case had it gone to trial.
“I don’t blame him for suing me,” said Moore, who plans on voting for Abbott for governor. “But I don’t know what the basis of the claim was, to tell you the truth, except that you had a rich River Oaks lawyer and a poor boy that was crippled for life.”
Court records show that Moore blamed the Davey Tree Expert Company for Abbott’s injuries. Records indicate the company inspected Moore’s trees in early 1983 and found them in “pretty good condition,” but the report took special note of a tall one near the sidewalk.
“There is some basal decay in the post oak, but that can’t be corrected,” it said. Basal decay indicates rotting at the base of a tree. The company recommended fertilization — the wrong treatment, according to Abbott.
ICYMI: that ship sailed a few months ago.
Texas schools can again set their own face mask rules after federal judge overrules Gov. Greg Abbott's ban
The judge said the governor's order impedes children with disabilities from the benefits of public schools’ programs, services and activities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The order comes after a monthslong legal dispute between parents, a disability rights organization and Texas officials over whether the state was violating the 1990 law, known as the ADA, by not allowing school districts to require masks. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel barred Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing Abbott’s order.
“The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,” Yeakel said. “Children with certain underlying conditions who contract COVID-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital’s intensive-care unit.”
https://theweek.com/climate-change/1008 ... ate-changeTexas can't PR its way out of climate change
Greg Abbott's 'see no evil' strategy for climate change isn't working
This week, Texas has been hit with another cold snap — not as bad as the one from last year, but enough to give its power system a stress test. Result: Gas supply infrastructure froze, leading to a sharp drop in production, power losses, and venting of dangerous pollutants. Texas clearly isn't ready for another deep freeze.
And that's not the unavoidable fate of a large, southern state in winter. It turns out the Texas Republican Party, and especially GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, have intentionally done very little to winterize their state's grid.
Instead of fixing the system as quickly as possible after last year's disaster, Abbott and his party passed a small-bore reform filled with exceptions at the behest of big donors from the natural gas industry. Since then, the governor has relied on propaganda and distraction to deflect blame and, apparently, hoped for a mild winter. He didn't get his wish, and even if Texas escapes another serious blackout this year, Abbott and his party have set Texas up for disaster.
Abbott and his ilk won't want to admit it, but this kind of wildly erratic weather is classic climate change. Just days prior to this recent cold snap, Texas experienced unusual heat, with record temperatures in Waco and Dallas and overall the hottest December since 1889. Then (likely because climate change has disrupted the jet stream) the state got a sudden blast of Arctic air from the far north, and temperatures plummeted.
Bloomberg reports:This is also classic Republican corruption. Experts and journalists have been warning for months that the Republican grid reform package was far short of what is needed. The Texas Tribune explained back in November that the Public Utility Commission, which oversees power producers, granted an exception to weatherization rules if companies "document their efforts to comply, explain why they couldn't, and submit a plan to do so later."[Y]et again, instruments froze, output plunged and companies spewed a miasma of pollutants into the atmosphere in a bid to keep operations stable … nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas was burned or wasted due to weather-related shutdowns, according to filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. At the same time, production plunged to the lowest level since the last freeze, BloombergNEF data shows. [Bloomberg Green]
This is something.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott in November: "I guarantee the lights will stay on."
Governor Abbott just now: "No one can guarantee that there wont be a 'load shed event.'"
A 'load shed event' is a planned blackout.
About 82 million Americans woke up Tuesday to winter weather alerts and the threat of rain, snow, sleet and ice wreaking havoc from Colorado to Vermont in coming days.
This latest winter storm system will be a slow-moving blast impacting a massive swath of America, east from the Rockies to the I-95 corridor and New England, from now through Friday.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday warned Texans about potential power losses and impassable roads this week due to winter weather. The Lone Star State suffered catastrophic power loses a year ago due to a winter storm.
"There will be thousands upon thousands of miles of roads that will be extraordinarily dangerous," Abbott said. "Over the coming few days, the roadways could become very treacherous."
Deplorable conditions, unclear mission: Texas National Guard troops call Abbott’s rushed border operation a disaster
The governor has sent waves of troops to the border as Guard officials scramble to execute a massive mobilization that would normally take months to plan. Some Guard members say the operation has set back their income, education and well-being.
n October, amid a historic surge of Texas National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, one soldier’s leader told him “not to worry” about getting sent there. He could sit this one out.
The part-time senior noncommissioned officer said he still feared an unanticipated call-up — he owns a small business and he has a son with a disability.
Usually, long-term Guard deployments come from the federal government, with nearly a year’s notice — the NCO had several months to settle his affairs before two previous deployments. But Operation Lone Star is different.
Faced with a humanitarian crisis along the Rio Grande, pressured by conservative rivals and chided by right-wing cable pundits, Gov. Greg Abbott decided last fall to move thousands of troops to the border as quickly as possible. And the Texas Military Department, which oversees the state’s National and State Guard branches, did all it could to comply — with haste.
Never before has Texas — or any other state — involuntarily activated so many troops under state active duty authority for such a long-term mission. Nor has it been done so quickly.
A few days after being told he’d likely sit the deployment out, the NCO was ordered to report within 72 hours, he said. If he didn’t, his commanders told him, the state would issue an arrest warrant.
“I had to cancel $60,000 worth of business contracts,” the NCO, who requested anonymity because he feared retaliation from Guard leaders, said in a text to Army Times and The Texas Tribune. His employees all quit.
Guess we didn't get enough ice.WHEREAS, the National Weather Service is predicting at least a quarter-inch of ice for Bosque, Dallas, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hopkins, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Lamar, Navarro, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, and Williamson counties; and
WHEREAS, the previously listed counties have issued or are planning to issue local disaster declarations in response to this ice storm;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GREG ABBOTT, Governor of the State of Texas, do hereby certify that this ice storm poses an imminent threat of severe property damage, injury, or loss of life in Bosque, Dallas, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hopkins, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Lamar, Navarro, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, and Williamson counties. In accordance with the authority vested in me by Section 418.014 of the Texas Government Code, I do hereby declare a state of disaster in the previously listed counties based on the existence of such threat.
Pursuant to Section 418.017 of the code, I authorize the use of all available resources of state government and of political subdivisions that are reasonably necessary to cope with this disaster.