The Windmill Industry Should Sue The F*ck Out Of Fox News, Every Texas Official

Use the system as it was intended.

Before a year or two ago, in a journalism career that began (oh lord) 30 years ago next month, I had never been sued for libel. But then that one choad sued yr Wonkette for calling him a felon when he only went to prison for MISDEMEANOR conspiracy to violate mine safety rules that resulted in the deaths of 29 miners. And then Larry Klayman sued yr Wonkette for pointing out that he stalked a poor woman right into a hotel lobby women's room where she'd fled to avoid him. And the entire GOP started suing everyone who made fun of Devin Nunes, or reported the existence of a book that said Melon had been a prostitute, and so on and so on.

Those are called SLAPP suits, or "strategic lawsuits against public participation," meaning trying to shut critics up, and they are very bad! They might even be some of that "cancel culture" the Republicans won't shut up about, because of how they have literally nothing else to run on right now.

But libel does in fact exist, and you're not actually supposed to just lie about people, and we're not saying the Party of Personal Responsibility is libeling others when they desperately point the finger ... oh wait, yes it is, that's it exactly! These are the people who want to know what NANCY PELOSI knew and when she knew it, regarding the Capitol riot half of them incited. And they've libeled the shit out of the Smartmatic and Dominion voting machine companies — the only voting machines that literally come with a paper backup, to exclude fraud, unlike ES&S which runs all the machines in all those states where the Republicans won their Senate races despite being way down in the polls, it's just curious. Smartmatic and Dominion are suing many people for libel, and they should. Were they lied about? You betcha. Did it cause damages? Presumably! How much business do you think they'll lose if they're known world-over as the unsafe fraud vote company? Or shoot, maybe they'll gain some?

And now, Fox News and everyone on it is blaming the renewable energy industry and its windmill companies for Texas's deep freeze, even after ERCOT — Texas's grid operator — said the freeze had mostly affected oil, coal, nuclear (their cooling ponds froze! aiyeeee!), and pipelines for natural gas. (It's also possible ENRON-style market manipulations, in one case taking next-day gas prices from $4 to $999 at one trading hub, didn't help.)

Texas Action Figure Congressman Dan Crenshaw blamed the windmills. Texas Governor Greg Abbott blamed the windmills. Tucker Carlson blamed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal. Even after literally everybody in the world explained why they are full of shit, John McCain's daughter's husband ran a post very carefully blaming the windmills.

 Of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responsible for the fact that Texas officials failed to winterize their energy supply 10 years after the report on the last big winter storm failure warned them to winterize their energy supply. And of course she's responsible for their deregulated energy market, and their willful refusal to join the national energy grid ... at least partly because of requirements that they winterize their shit.

But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a public official, so it's harder for her to sue miscreants at Fox News and in the Texas statehouse for libel, as it should be. (FYI, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been playing footsie for years with Donald Trump's demands to "open up the libel laws" and ditch that important First Amendment protection case, NYT v. Sullivan .) Just like Nancy Pelosi probably can't sue them for intimating she invited  the Russians to steal the election from herthe Proud Boys to wander the halls of Congress keening NAAAANCYYYY, WHERE AAAARE YOUUUU.

But the renewable energy industry and the wind companies it comprises are not elected officials, and they're being libeled the fuck out of, and actually (presumably) have or will have financial damages.

And they should, unlike Larry Klayman, and the choad, and Devin Nunes and Melon and all the rest of them, use the courts to protect themselves from defamation, as the system is intended.

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