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Posts Tagged ‘insurance’

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready for the Super Bowl this Sunday as it brings you this week’s blog highlights.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks that the Houston Chronicle caught the essence of the GOP with this headline ‘Many attacks, but few suggestions‘.

WhosPlayin is tired of hearing obstructionist Republicans whining about not having a seat at the table for Health Care Insurance Reform, after they make it clear they’ll vote against any attempt to harm their Pharma and Insurance benefactors.

Off the Kuff notes that the Texas ParentPAC has endorsed Thomas Ratliff in his GOP primary fight against uber-SBOE wingnut Don McLeroy.

Bay Area Houston watched as the Texas Association of Builders got kicked in the nuts at a hearing in Austin over the abuse of mandatory binding arbitration.

It’s been such an amazing news week in the Barnett Shale that it’s hard to pick one topic for the round-up. One item that should be of interest to anyone in the DFW area who drinks water: Argyle Disposal Well in Denton Creek Flood Plain. No kidding! It’s for real on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the taxing TAKS becoming the pretty STAAR that school children will have to shoot past in order to graduate.

If you missed the GOP gov debate, check out McBlogger’s rather insightful analysis of the three players performances, along with a mercifully brief comment on the sexual desirability of Rep. Louie Gohmert.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the latest Texans for Public Justice “Watching Your Assets” report, this one about the Texas Enterprise Fund, Perry’s corporate welfare not paying off for Texas.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw puts a local spin on young James O’Keefe’s foiled attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu’s phones. The roll call Texas Republican admirers is quite long. Of equal interest was the discussion that followed the outing of these Republicans. See it all at Texas Republican Lawmakers Honor James O’Keefe.

It’s a travesty that only Bill White and Farouk Shami are participating in the Texas Democratic gubernatorial debate on February 8 because the other five candidates don’t meet the “standards”. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs believes it’s impossible to reconcile that KERA, a public broadcasting station, together with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Univision and other corporate and media industry sponsors, would conspire to preclude candidates for the state’s highest public office.

Neil at Texas Liberal is glad that Houston City Councilmember Jarvis Johnson is talking about poverty in his 18th U.S. House District primary fight with incumbent Sheila Jackson Lee. However, it will take some solid ideas and not just talk to feel that Mr. Johnson is really serious about the issue.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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According to this article from the New York Times, a “major trade group for the insurance industry” has taken the stance that global warming may, after all, be the scam all those talk radio and Fox News pundits are claiming it is. This group is the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, or NAMIC.

In a letter to insurance regulators, NAMIC makes statements denying the legitimacy of global warming science, making outlandish claims such as the University of East Anglia climatologists “actively colluded to subvert the peer-review process,” amongst other things. Apparently NAMIC prefers the cherry-picked misquotes of personal emails to the vast array of climate science available. That’s what they’ve armed themselves with to challenge the established scientific theories on anthropogenic global warming. None of these insurance businessmen are climatologists, but they feel they have the expertise and qualifications to make judgments about policy and how it relates to the threat of global climate change.

Overall, however, insurance companies still seem concerned about climate change, and for good reason. Insurance companies stand to lose vast amounts of money due to the changes scientists predict – some companies could go bankrupt depending on how bad and how quickly the effects occur. Perhaps this is just fear run amuck through certain insurance company circles, but that doesn’t make it any less irresponsible or dangerous. At a time when we need focused calculation and attention paid to the ever-increasing threats of global warming we are, instead, getting hysteria and misinformation. If NAMIC wants to join the likes of Glen Beck and Mark Levin let us at least hope that insurance regulators will take them just as seriously as those fine gentlemen.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Read Full Post »

round upIt’s Monday and it’s time for another version of the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly highlight reel.

Off the Kuff suggests that a pro-science PAC could do a lot of good, nationally and in Texas.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson reminds us that despite the brouhaha over transportation during the recently passed legislative session TxDOT is still broken.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is outraged at the way Texas Republican crony capitalism whips patients in hospitals and psychiatric facilities.

Nat-Wu at Three Wise Men takes a look at the nation’s unemployment picture, and finds it’s even worse than the numbers make it appear.

Over at Texas Kaos, Lightseeker shares an email indicating Big Insurance doesn’t just want to maximize the profits in makes from its members, it wants them to help protect them from competition. No, REALLY. Big Insurance Wants YOUR Help to Block Competetive Reforms.

Barfly at McBlogger takes a look at an exciting new movie coming out soon that’s sure to draw in every douchebag you know.

With the news that the CIA concealed a clandestine counter-terrorism program from Congress on direct orders from Dick Cheney, the recently loquacious former veep has once again clammed up and disappeared. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs notes the turnabout.

Teddy at Left of College Station asks whether or not soon to be former Governor Sarah Palin is going with the flow, swimming upstream, or flopping on the shore? Teddy also answers the question of whether or not Congressman Murphy can push through legislation that would be the beginning of the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Also, Left of College Station covers the week in headlines.

Neil at Texas Liberal watched a 35 year old rerun of All In The Family. In the episode Neil watched, George Jefferson called Archie a honky.

WhosPlayin posted video of an inappropriate campaign solicitation at Congressman Michael Burgess’ recent Town Hall meeting.

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