TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalMore early voters casting ballots in Texas
Nearly a third more local and statewide voters have voted in the Nov. 3 constitutional amendment election than they did in a similar election two years ago.
After the first three days of early voting, more than 88,464 voters — compared with 58,821 two years ago — voted early and in person, according to tallies from the state’s 15 largest counties.
While the numbers are up, that’s still less than 1 percent turnout of the state’s 8.9 million registered voters in those counties, election records show.
“We are always encouraged when numbers are up,” said Frank Phillips, Tarrant County’s elections administrator. “Generally on these elections, turnout is topic-driven.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/election/article41143776.html
Paxton sues feds over Obamacare fee on health insurers
AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the Obama administration over an Affordable Care Act fee on health insurers that applies to private insurers under Medicaid — and thus has become a hit to state budgets.
Joining his counterparts in Louisiana and Kansas, Paxton on Wednesday sued Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to challenge the federal law’s “Health Insurance Providers Fee.”
While it applies to commercial insurers in the private market, it also affects so-called Medicaid managed care organizations. In Texas, they cover 87 percent of the state’s 3.7 million Medicaid enrollees. The state pays the companies an up-front sum, and part of that is reimbursing them for the new federal fee.
In fiscal 2013, the fee for managed care companies participating in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program cost state taxpayers $85 million. In the current two-year state budget cycle, the burden is about $241 million, Paxton’s brief says.
Read more including updates to the story at http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/10/paxton-sues-feds-over-obamacare-fee-on-health-insurers.html/ .
The Austin American-Statesman also has an article that indicates that Paxton went forum shopping by filing suit in Wichita Falls rather than in Travis County. That article is at http://www.statesman.com/news/news/ken-paxton-sues-to-scrap-obamacare-fee/nn7yZ/ .
GM posts record operating profits from cost-cutting, corporate restructuring
As the auto executives, the media and the United Auto Workers insist that autoworkers agree to another historic attack in new four-year contracts, General Motors on Wednesday announced a 40 percent increase in third quarter profits.
Beating Wall Street expectations, GM said it made $1.36 billion in net income in the third quarter, chiefly through record high profit margins in North America. The world’s third largest automaker reported a post-bankruptcy record of $3.1 billion in operating profits. This excludes debt servicing costs and a $1.5 billion deduction for legal settlements stemming from its cover-up of deadly ignition switch defects.
Ford and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) are expected to announce their profits for the third quarter sometime next week.
The results came as 40,000 FCA workers were voting on a second sellout deal being pushed by the UAW. The aim of the agreement is to create a permanently lower wage in the auto industry once older, higher paid workers are driven out through layoffs, speed up and forced retirements. The UAW essentially repackaged the deal after workers voted it down by a two-to-one margin earlier this month.
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/22/gmpr-o22.html
German chancellor strikes sordid deal with Turkish government to block refugees
Necessity knows no law. True to this motto, German Chancellor Angela Merkel travelled to Istanbul on Sunday to negotiate the terms of a joint plan of action between the European Union and Turkey previously agreed upon by the EU heads of state.
The aim of the plan is to ensure that refugees are stopped before they reach the gates of Fortress Europe. Turkey is to serve as a buffer zone for refugees from Syria and Iraq and assume the role of the EU’s leading border guard. In return, the EU is prepared to meet Turkey’s demands regarding the country’s membership negotiations.
The joint plan of action stipulates that the Turkish coast guard in the Aegean Sea play a more aggressive role in intercepting refugees. So far this year, only 50,000 refugees were intercepted, while 450,000 were able to reach the coast of Greece. To put an end to this, the Turkish coast guard is to undergo technical upgrades and collaborate with the European border protection agency Frontex and the Greek coast guard.
Central to the plan is the acceleration of a readmission agreement, under which Turkey is tasked with taking back refugees who have entered Greece, Bulgaria or Romania. In addition, the EU will finance the construction of six new camps for more than 2 million refugees.
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/22/merk-o22.html
Scott Angelle launches most pointed attack yet on Vitter's prostitution scandal in final debate
Story at link:
http://theadvocate.com/news/13763283-148/3-candidates-for-governor-to
Suspected cop shooter in custody after manhunt (Albuquerque)
Source: Albuquerque Journal
A man who allegedly shot an Albuquerque police officer during a traffic stop near Eubank and Central was taken into custody after an hours-long manhunt Wednesday night, according to officer Tanner Tixier, a department spokesman.
Police said Davon Lymon, 34, was arrested in connection to the shooting that left an 8-year veteran of the department critically wounded.
Chief Gorden Eden said the male officer was undergoing his second surgery at the University of New Mexico Hospital shortly after 10 p.m.
“They are working diligently to save this officer’s life,” Eden said outside the hospital emergency room late Wednesday night. “We are in the best place where an officer can be in this condition.”
Read more: http://www.abqjournal.com/663504/news/officer-shot-near-eubank-and-central.html
Appeal's court upholds Starr County employee's $1.4 million lawsuit for wrongful termination
A U.S. court of appeals upheld a jury verdict Tuesday ordering Starr County to pay its employee, Hilda Garza, who is running for Starr County attorney, $1.4 million in damages related to a wrongful termination case from 2012.
In 2013 a federal jury sided with Garza, a Starr County assistant attorney, after she sued her boss and current county Attorney Victor Canales, claiming she was fired for announcing she would run against Canales’ political allies in the 2012 Rio Grande City school board election, according to court documents.
After a two-day trial, a federal jury ruled Garza be reinstated and that Canales, along with the county, should be liable for $1.4 million in damages and attorney fees. U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane upheld the jury’s verdict to reinstate Garza but denied the monetary award, according to Jenny Lee Smith, who is representing Garza.
“We are extremely pleased that the court of appeals agreed with Ms. Garza’s arguments, reversed the trial court’s judgment, and reinstated the jury’s $1.4 million verdict in her favor,” Smith said Wednesday in an email.
Read more: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/appeal-s-court-upholds-employee-s-million-lawsuit-for-wrongful/article_f10a70f6-7860-11e5-ad9f-0faa8a04f339.html
Jeb Bush would make the sick pay
Last week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush put forward a healthcare proposal as part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
The plan, which has many moving parts, is intended to replace President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. If you don’t expect to get sick, you might like it.
Instead of healthcare exchanges and mandated insurance, Bush’s plan would give tax credits to buy catastrophic coverage.
This means the government would pick up a substantial share of the cost of a plan that has a large deductible, with the insurance kicking in only after a person had paid close to $7,000 out of his or her own pocket, or $13,000 for a couple.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/other-voices/article40783527.html#storylink=cpy
Democrats call for investigation after Texas moves to cut Planned Parenthood from Medicaid
WASHINGTON–Texas Democrats are fighting a move by state officials to cut the last few taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston called the action “awful and shameful,” as well as illegal Wednesday, asking for a federal investigation into the state’s reasoning for cutting off the women’s health care provider.
The Office of Inspector General, responsible for investigating fraud for the state’s health agency,announced Monday that Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid contracts would be terminated based on conversations in an undercover video of a Houston abortion clinic, released in August.
Jackson Lee said that means the state would be excluding the provider because of the range of medical services provided, which is prohibited by law. She has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate what she calls an easy win.
“You cannot deny reimbursements, closing facilities, because you don’t like the services,” Jackson Lee said. “I think this will be easy to determine. It is a clear mandate by the law that what the state of Texas is doing is wrong.”
Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/10/democrats-call-for-investigation-after-texas-moves-to-cut-planned-parenthood-from-medicaid.html/
9 Times Sci-Fi Incorrectly Predicted the Future of Texas
Back to the Future Part II lied to us. It’s 2015 and we don’t have flying cars, the Cubbies aren’t (likely) going to win the pennant, and where we’re going we most certainly need roads. Sure, hoverboards technically exist, but you’re not going to be able to hitch a ride on the back of a hover-converted Jeep any time soon.
But Back to the Future isn’t the first work of fiction to bungle utopian promises of the future, let alone the future of the Lone Star State. So, in honor of the unofficial Back to the Future Day, we’ll look back at nine times when fiction got it wrong.
Lone Star Planet (A Planet for Texans)
What it promised: a Texan-only planet
In H. Beam Piper and J.J. McGuire’s 1958 novel, everyone carries a gun, the death penalty is legal and people from outside of Texas keep moving to the Planet for Texans. While New Texas could happen somewhere down the line, given the state’s love-hate relationship with Tesla, it seems unlikely Elon Musk’s company will manufacture shuttles to transport Texans to the Lone Star Planet.
Read more: http://kut.org/post/9-times-sci-fi-incorrectly-predicted-future-texas
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
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