Dallas Morning News
Jan. 10 editorial: “Gov. Abbott can do more than his frontier letter to President Biden.”
In terms of political theater, no one expected to see a movie about pals when Gov. Greg Abbott met President Joe Biden on the airstrip during the Democrat’s important border visit Sunday. However, it is sad and revealing that the hostile letter that Abbott delivered to Biden after the handshake appears to be a major part of their communication during the Texas visit.
Biden’s visit was long overdue, his own Democratic colleagues said. We echoed Abbott’s calls for increased border enforcement because he is right that border communities are in turmoil with thousands of migrants arriving every day.
Abbott’s letter contained a fair criticism of the Biden administration, but the tone and delivery render its content useless. The letter Abbott handed to Biden in front of the news cameras sounded more like a warrant had been handed to the president than a bona fide greeting from our state’s governor.
“All of this is happening because you have violated your constitutional obligation to protect the states from invasion by faithfully enforcing federal laws,” Abbott wrote.
This is a strong accusation. But worse, it repeats the ugly rhetoric that characterizes the border crisis from a military perspective, which risks portraying all migrants as enemy combatants.
Americans can handle the nuances. We understand that what is happening at the border is a political and humanitarian emergency that should not remain the same, even though we understand that the majority of arrivals are desperate adults and children and deserve to be treated humanely, even if their asylum applications end up not complying with US law.
We know that our governor is also capable of nuances. However, he continues to avoid it in favor of a political stance that rallies his Republican base but does little to advance solutions.
– Dallas Morning News Editorial Board
San Antonio Express News
January 11 editorial: “Stop shooting in the legs, Elon.”
Not so long ago, billionaire Elon Musk spent more time talking about Mars, rockets, electric cars and saving humanity than about politics. Something in Texas waters must have gotten to him since he moved here in 2020. We wonder if his growing forays into politics, combined with the distraction of his acquisition of Twitter, could hurt his Texas efforts, of which he has plenty.
His companies are SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Co. and Neuralink are expanding across the state. From McGregor near Waco to Boca Chica by the bay, the tech mogul has invested heavily, hired thousands of Texans, and made many promises.
But instead of talking about how the Texas-made Starship rocket could someday help humans become multi-planet, or the growing network of SpaceX Starlink internet satellites, or how weird life would be with Neuralink brain implants, or the latest Tesla Cybertruck features, Musk is shaking things in and out on Twitter.
If a “public perception” warning appears in one of Musk’s SpaceX control centers, its red lights flash and alarms sound.
Some might see a difficult 2022 for Tesla as the most obvious sign that something is wrong. Its value has fallen 65 percent, or $700 billion, in a year, despite setting sales records and deliveries up 40 percent.
Some say the Twitter deal, combined with Musk’s bizarre – and sometimes offensive, immature or politically motivated – tweets, is pushing customers away from Tesla. Critics and fans point out that the stock market and other automakers are struggling in 2022, Tesla is struggling with increased competition in the electric car market, and “adjustment” is a natural occurrence for overvalued stocks.
— San Antonio Express-News editors
Houston Chronicle
January 9 editorial: “What if gas suppliers don’t deliver? ERCOT needs a monitor to warn the Texans.”
When the polar vortex descended towards Texas a few days before Christmas, Christine DeLisle was on edge. As mayor of Leander, a hilly city of 67,000 north of Austin, DeLisle knew her constituents’ warmth during the few days of frost would depend in large part on the surface reliability of Atmos Energy, the city’s natural gas supplier.
Two years earlier, when [a freeze] after shutting off power to millions of Texans, Atmos shut off gas to an entire area in Leander, leaving more than 1,600 homes without heat for nearly a week. Immediately afterwards, at a city council meeting, Atmos apologized and filed the typical accusations, assuring that such a shutdown would never happen again.
Then, three weeks ago, it happened again.
Even though Atmos had placed trucks in Leander to deliver compressed gas if needed, residents began complaining to DeLisle about low gas pressure and outages on the first day of frost. Local reporters told her that Atmos’ customer service phone line was offline for the holidays. DeLisle and a small staff rushed to set up a temporary warming center at a local church.
“It’s become clear that we haven’t even reached the coldest freeze yet and Atmos can’t deliver,” DeLisle told the newsroom. Tired of the lack of accountability, she admitted that while Texans are generally unhappy with the idea of regulating our energy sector, the result of the status quo is that companies like Atmos go unpunished despite putting customers at risk.
“I think maybe it’s time for a little more regulation than what we had before,” DeLisle said.
— Editorial Board of the Houston Chronicle
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Jan. 13 editorial: “As schools in the Fort Worth area are sinking, everyone should grab a bucket—even city officials.”
Some crises require all hands to be on deck. One is the discouraging reputation of public schools in the Fort Worth area and Texas in general.
If city officials want to participate in improving education, they have more power. It is important that this be done in the right way, with respect for the School Board Trustees that voters have chosen. Other leaders should try to support, not control.
However, the need for their participation is obvious. Problematic schools in the area are a major obstacle to further growth and progress. Everyone knows this, from public figures to business leaders. One of the under-discussed aspects of Texas’ remarkable economic boom is that companies based here, thanks to an attractive business climate, often import talent. As noted in a recent Dallas Morning News report, workers brought to Texas tend to be better educated and more skilled than those available here.
In other words, we often talk about foreign immigrants doing jobs that Americans don’t want to do. But it’s even more troubling: non-Texans are taking jobs that Texas-born and raised workers can’t.
– Editorial Fort Worth Star-Telegram
