It was almost an all out war between the Florida Democratic congressman Alcee Hastings and the gentleman from Texas, Republican Michael Burgess. During a recent congressional meeting, Hastings directed an insult towards the state of Texas, prompting the Texas Representative to demand an apology.
The apology never came, in fact, Hastings doubled down, rather tripled down on his original insult. After showing the clip, Stewart wondered if America would be better off if the two states destroyed themselves in an all out war!
Federal officials announced Wednesday that 969,461 people in Texas have signed so far up for insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area, 277,015 consumers selected or were automatically enrolled in a 2015 plan, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
The sign-up deadline for this year’s coverage is Feb. 15.
Nearly 7.5 million consumers selected a plan or were automatically re-enrolled through the HealthCare.gov platform as of Jan. 30, 2015.
Wednesday’s Weekly Enrollment Snapshot for the first time also includes people who selected a plan or were automatically re-enrolled within select Metropolitan Statistical Areas. This localized data provides another level of detail to better understand total plan selections within local communities ahead of the Feb. 15 deadline.
As of Jan. 30:
– 256,982 consumers in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX local area selected or were automatically enrolled in a plan – 89,821 consumers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX local area selected or were automatically enrolled in a plan – 85,116 consumers in the Austin-Round Rock, TX local area selected or were automatically enrolled in a plan – 40,791 consumers in the El Paso, TX local area selected or were automatically enrolled in a plan – 26,17 consumers in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX local area selected or were automatically enrolled in a plan
Whatever happened to the days when an unruly student is sent to the principal’s office or held for detention. Those days are dead, buried and forgotten in The Lone state of Texas!
According to a new bill introduced by Rep. Dan Flynn, a Republican in the Texas legislature, teachers would now have the right to shoot and kill students in the classroom, on the school grounds or at any school sponsored event.
The Lone Star State already permits teachers to have firearms in the classroom, but H.B. 868, also known as the Teacher’s Protection Act, would authorize instructors to use “force or deadly force on school property, on a school bus, or at a school-sponsored event in defense of the educator’s person or in defense of students of the school that employs the educator.” Instructors would also have the right to use deadly force “in defense of property of the school that employs the educator.” Moreover, civil immunity would be granted to those who use deadly force, meaning they would not be liable for the injury or death of student.
And this nutjob, Flynn, is a real nutjob. Thinkprogress reports that he is one of the state’s staunchest gun-rights advocates who previously co-authored legislation to allow firearms on college campuses. In 2013, he successfully co-authored a law that reduced the minimum number of training hours needed for a concealed handgun license.
A Texas man convicted of killing a 38-year-old woman nearly two decades ago while he was on parole for a triple slaying years earlier was executed Thursday evening, Dallas News reports.
Robert Ladd, 57, received a lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments he was mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty. The court also rejected an appeal in which Ladd’s attorney challenged whether the pentobarbital Texas uses in executions is potent enough to not cause unconstitutional pain and suffering.
Ladd was executed for the 1996 slaying of 38-year-old Vicki Ann Garner, of Tyler, who was strangled and beaten with a hammer. Her arms and legs were bound, bedding was placed between her legs, and she was set on fire in her apartment.
In his final statement, Ladd addressed the sister of his victim by name, telling her he was “really, really sorry.”
“I really, really hope and pray you don’t have hatred in your heart,” he said, adding that he didn’t think she could have closure but hoped she could find peace. “A revenge death won’t get you anything,” he said.
Then Ladd told the warden: “Let’s ride.”
As the drug took effect, he said: “Stings my arm, man!” He began taking deep breaths, then started snoring. His snores became breaths, each one becoming less pronounced, before he stopped all movement.
He was pronounced dead at 7:02 p.m., 27 minutes after the drug was administered.
Police said she entered the police station “brandishing a weapon,” so that apparently meant the three grown men with guns felt threatened enough to gun down the 17 year old mentally challenged girl in the lobby of the police station.
Police said that Kristiana Coignard entered Longview’s police station at 6.30pm on Thursday and asked to speak with an officer through the lobby courtesy phone. The teenager was still in the lobby of the police station when, according to police, she threatened the officers while wielding a weapon — reportedly a knife — and was shot “multiple times,” according to a local official.
Exactly what led three male officers to shoot Coignard dead is still unclear. The Longview police department has not released any further statements on the events.
Kristie Brian, spokeswoman for Longview Police, said that footage of the incident does exist, but is not available to the public, nor are records of the brief call Coignard made from the police department’s lobby. Brian did not confirm what type of weapon Coignard was allegedly threatening the officers with.
Heather Robertson, Coignard’s aunt, told ThinkProgress that her niece, who was living with her in Longview, had mental illness issues since her mother died when she was four. Robertson added that Coignard attempted suicide various times, but was taking medications, and that she did not have a criminal record or a history of violent behavior toward others.
“I think it was a cry for help,” Robertson said. “I think they could have done something. They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us.”
Where are their morals, where are their decency? This low down re-enactment of a terrorist attack in France that left 17 people dead just shows us these people have no clue, no morals and definitely no decency.
A Texas pro-gun group organized a re-enactment of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in a bizarre bid to test what would have happened if one of the murdered scribes was armed.
But the experiment set up by the group The Truth About Guns backfired — in no scenario was the “armed civilian” able to take out both “terrorists.”
Perhaps even more disappointing for the pro-gun activists, only one of the volunteers playing the role of the armed civilian even managed to survive — by fleeing the scene.
Pro-gun activist Nick Leghorn, who helped organize the experiment, not surprisingly downplayed the results.
“It’s interesting to see how people react under stress,” Leghorn told a local CBS affiliate.
“It’s not what you’d expect people do.”
The set, created in the town of Plano, mirrored the Paris office where the bloody terror attack was carried out last week.
Armed with paintball guns, two volunteers played the roles of Cherif and Said Kouachi, the sibling extremists who carried out the Jan. 7 slaughter.
As if the Cowboy kerfuffle wasn’t enough of a distraction for the governor, along comes another story where ‘Boys owner Jerry Jones condescends to Christie’s fandom by saying that having Christie in the owner’s box is payback for when the not-governor was too poor to pay for parking. Jones also said that he will support Christie if he decides to run for president.
Which he will. And apparently he will make that announcement by the end of the month. It would certainly be a delicious treat for the candidate-in-waiting to be able to announce his intentions a day or two after the Cowboys win the Super Bowl on February 1, but I don’t believe that is in the offing if the Green Bay Packers have anything to say about that. A Cowboys loss this Sunday would clear the news cycle for Christie’s announcement, which I assume will come during the week when there’s no game scheduled. The man might be unsuitable to be president, but he does have a knack for public relations.
But, oh! the complications. First up is a report that one of New Jersey’s marquee employers, Mercedes-Benz, is leaving the state and heading for Georgia, which is cheaper and has lower taxes. This doesn’t help Christie with the pro-business crowd and will further reduce the chance that New Jersey’s economy has a robust recovery in time for the governor to run on a miracle.
Then comes another story that says that of people involved in an interstate move involving New Jersey, the vast majority are leaving the state–fleeing is the headline word–rather than moving in. This is not a scientific survey as the data is being supplied by United Van Lines, a moving company, but it does attest to what anecdotal evidence has suggested for years. The Governor will probably seize on these numbers to continue to argue against a millionaire’s tax because his main argument has always been that more people will leave the state rather than pay. But since people seem to be leaving anyway, it doesn’t say much about his improving things in the state.
The real damage, though, comes because these are more negative stories about New Jersey. Christie can go around the country and tell tales about bipartisanship and how he got the Democratic legislature to pass a pension and benefits bill, but his refusal to actually make a mandated payment will also follow him. As will the videos of him yelling at veterans and public employees. Americans do want someone who will fight for them, but they don’t want someone who will fight them because he disagrees with them.
Finally, there’s that darned Bush family. Yes, Jeb Bush is off and raising money for a White House bid that will directly compete for the same voters Christie needs for support during the primaries. And Jeb’s talking about big issues like immigration and income inequality, while Christie is huddling with foreign policy experts to learn what to say in interviews.
It’s clear that Christie will rise above the silliness of the Dallas story, but the pertinent point is that once he declares himself a candidate for president, he will have precious little to run on.
It’s one thing to sit in the owners box and discuss politics or bidness with a somewhat straight face and an unemotional posture.
Then there’s what Governor Chris Christie did on Sunday evening with Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones. Christie looked like an unabashed fan who had just won a side of beef in a bet after America’s Team came back from 13 points down to win their playoff game against the Detroit Lions. He never got to actually hug Jones, so much as wrapping his hands near the owner’s underarms and besides, Christie never looks good when his feet leave the ground.
So now to the political fallout. This was not a good moment for the Governor. First of all, he has three teams from which to choose in his own market–the Giants, Jets and Eagles–yet he chose to go halfway across the country to essentially be a win-chaser and to actually look like he was in thrall to Jerry Jones. Christie wants to appear as a lunch pail every day Jersey guy, but now that’s been jettisoned as the Presidential-Candidate-In-Waiting shows his true colors. I’m sure he’s had the money conversation with Jones and they look like they’re real pals, which means something in a race that will also feature the former Governor of Texas.
Mr. Christie, characteristically, doubled down in the face of criticism. He seemed happy to replay the incident when he called into the Boomer and Carton show on New York’s WFAN sports radio, as it gave him another chance to boast of his closeness to Mr. Jones. He gave details on the locker room celebration that the camera did not capture, saying that Dez Bryant, the wide receiver, was the first person to hug him. “Dez knows exactly who I am, yes,” the governor assured his hosts.
Why would the governor want to boast of his closeness to Jones? Aren’t the Tisch’s and the Johnson’s wealthy enough? Or do they see right through Christie’s act?
This is but one episode in what will become a complete circus once Christie enters the presidential race and unveils his true persona to the American people. They will then learn what we in New Jersey already know; Christie has no shame and no filter. These will be his greatest strengths at the beginning of the campaign, but will ultimately prove to be his undoing.
Republicans used the so-called “Ebola Outbreak”to create all sorts of scare scenarios trying to convince the American people that we should be scared, we should be afraid because President Obama and the Democrats were asleep at the wheel. Ads popped up all over the country warning Americans that if we did not vote for Republicans, then Ebola or ISIS, or Ebola and ISIS were going to snatch us out of bed and infect, then behead us all.
And of course, in the “Home of the Brave,” scared Americans believed the tall tales of the Republican party and voted them into power.
Well, according to NBC News, the so-called “Ebola Outbreak” in Texas is over!
As of midnight Friday, it was 21 days since anyone got Ebola or was in contact with someone who got Ebola.
“God willing, we are going to be Ebola-free Friday midnight,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the elected official who oversaw the county’s response to its three-person outbreak, before the deadline passed.
It started when Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen planning to settle in the United States, became sick and was at first mistakenly sent home from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. He returned two days later by ambulance and was diagnosed with Ebola.
Officials had to track as many as 50 people who may have been in contact with Duncan. But the real scare came when two nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, became infected while caring for him. Vinson had traveled to Ohio to make wedding plans and, even though she wasn’t diagnosed until she came back to Dallas, her travels set off waves of anxiety.
But don’t worry Americans, although reports say that ISIS is retreating, they’re still around… somewhere. So Be afraid! Be very afraid!
A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has tested positive for ebola, the first case of ebola transmission in the United States.
The unidentified nurse had helped treat Thomas Eric Duncan, who died last week from the virus after traveling to the Dallas area from Liberia. The patient reported a low-grade fever Friday night and was immediately isolated and tested in Austin; the positive results were received last night.
Officials said Sunday morning that the patient, who was in the low risk pool, had complied with all CDC guidelines. A hazmat team has been dispatched the health worker’s apartment; officials do not believe the patient’s pet poses any threat.
Thomas Eric Duncan is now in isolation in Dallas, but while in Liberia he tried helping his landlord’s daughter who was an Ebola victim. In an effort to save her life, Thomas Duncan rushed the young lady to the hospital in a taxi only to be turned away. Reports say that the girl was too weak to walk on her own and Duncan carried her back home where she died later on that night.
The girl’s brother, who also tried helping, also died a few weeks later.
Duncan left Liberia on September 19th to visit his family in Texas. On September 24th he went to the doctor when symptoms began manifesting themselves. He went back to the doctor on the 26th and was admitted on September 28th.
He is now in isolation. But according to a press briefing today it was also revealed that Thomas Eric Duncan was in contact with five children. The children attend four different schools in Texas. Authorities are presently monitoring those children for possible signs of Ebola.
The “small government” Republicans in the great state of Texas are not going to take this one laying down. They have already indicated they are going to fight this decision and are prepared to take their fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
A federal judge late Friday struck down two provisions of a Texas law that has already forced the closure of half the state’s abortion clinics, granting at least a temporary reprieve to nearly a dozen more facilities that would have otherwise gone out of business Monday.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, in a 21-page decision, concluded that when the two provisions in question “are considered together, they create a scheme that effects the closing of almost all abortion clinics in Texas that were operating legally in the fall of 2013.”
As a result, Yeakel said, “the overall effect of the provisions is to create an impermissible obstacle as applied to all women” seeking an abortion. If the provisions were allowed to stand, women in Texas would shoulder an “unconstitutional undue burden,” he wrote, because the Texas law restricts access to previously available legal facilities.
These “small government” Republicans who believe that “government should stay out of our lives,” need to be in charge of the most personal, private decision a woman can make over her own body.
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