June 29, 2012
Within my own lifetime of several decades, I can remember a time when there was wide agreement among citizens of this country about issues that affected nearly everybody. Nowadays, there appears be less consensus than ever. Since shared visions about the right way to behave to do things are more difficult to ascertain, the political [...]
June 29, 2012
More than a few of my friends on the political right have taken to comparing the Supreme Court’s decision on the individual health insurance mandate to the infamous Dred Scott decision that declared that blacks were not citizens and therefore couldn’t ever have full legal rights. Here’s direct mail/movement guru Richard Viguerie and here’s an [...]
June 28, 2012
(See UPDATE below) In a briefing today with interested parties, the Senate Banking Committee’s chairman and ranking member confirmed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have agreed to a deal that will allow flood insurance reform legislation to proceed this week as an attachment to the transportation conference [...]
June 26, 2012
Florida state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, recently sat down with the Florida Channel to record his “Perspectives” interview that most state legislators do every year. Instead of discussing typical “meat and potatoes” issues that most politicians think voters care about, he chose an issue that he believes voters should care about—the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. [...]
June 26, 2012
U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. – the former chairman and current ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – has some issues with American International Group. And generally speaking, we can’t blame him. Back in 2009, he was one of the loudest congressional critics of the insurance giant’s federal bailout package, and [...]
June 22, 2012
Ohio has an interesting case study in principles and politics in the current clash over the potential of new natural gas and oil reserves in the eastern and southeastern parts of the state. North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana are all savoring employment gains and tax revenue increases from the relatively new horizontal drilling that [...]
June 21, 2012
When one strips away the posturing and insinuations of sinister corporate conspiracies contained in the new report on auto insurance rates from the Consumer Federation of America, you’re left with a pretty simple conclusion: If you shop around for things on the Internet, you can often find a better price than the one you’re first [...]
June 19, 2012
This past weekend, conservative activists from around the country descended on the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas for Americans for Prosperity’s fifth annual RightOnline Conference. The event drew the conservative movement’s most prominent new media personalities and others who are on the cutting edge of conservative citizen journalism, with keynote speakers that included Sarah Palin, Michelle [...]
June 19, 2012
It’s almost time. After 17 (count ‘em) short-term extensions, almost a half dozen lapses in the program, and tons of political wrangling, a flood insurance reform bill–a real one–is going to come to the U.S. Senate floor as soon as tomorrow. The U.S. House has already passed a bill. Given the enormously slow pace at which [...]
June 19, 2012
The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association has only about $3.6 billion in claims-paying resources “under a best case scenario,” even though it could face losses of $14.2 billion from a Category 4 hurricane striking Galveston or $14.3 billion from a similar storm hitting Corpus Christi, according to the chairman of Texas’ House Insurance Committee. State Rep. [...]
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