January 24, 2026

Great TX driving conditions map from Tx DOT

You can use your location, or the default will give the whole state and you can zoom in.

https://drivetexas.org/

August 21, 2025

Health insurance carriers request raising ACA premiums by more than 20% on average in Texas

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/21/texas-health-insurance-premiums-aca-tax-credit-expiration/?_bhlid=5e9cc4ef44009d1d24a20a554e0a2cab109ae29b

Health insurers are hiking policy premiums in response to proposed federal cuts and rising costs in various parts of the health care sector.

snip

Health insurance companies have requested an average premium increase of 24% for Affordable Care Act plans in Texas in 2026, a significant hike that could lead to destabilization in the marketplace and customers opting for less or no coverage.

Last year, the average rate hike across insurance carriers was 3.8%. Data analysis from KFF found that next year’s rate hikes could be the largest increase since 2018, when average premiums went up by 35% in Texas. In 2018, companies factored in Congress’ attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and President Donald Trump signing an executive order ending subsidies to insurers for low-income people. After 2018, average premiums in Texas have never risen by more than 4%.

Nearly 4 million Texans bought health insurance coverage through the ACA marketplace for 2025, a high-water mark in a state that has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. ACA uptake has tripled since 2020, after Congress expanded tax credits to lower ACA users’ monthly premiums.

snip

More at link

August 9, 2025

Where is all of the money that we are "saving" from layoffs, canceled grants, and programs going? (nt)

June 21, 2025

The Big Bill is built on a faulty premise. We don't "need" the tax cuts. A powerful minority "wants" them.

May 17, 2025

A good immigrant is a deported immigrant. It's the theme of this Repub. administration.

It doesn't matter if they have protected status or have a visa.

April 8, 2025

"Tariffs On China Set To Rise To 104% After It Misses Trump's Deadline"

Not "missed" but "ignored."

https://www.cnn.com

You miss a dentist appointment. You miss a turn. This wasn't some inconsequential meeting. This deadline was ignored.

April 3, 2025

"Now they will do anything for us."

From HuffPost Updates: Trump Is Off To A Golf Tournament At His Club After Sending Economy Into Panic Mode
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-presidency-live-updates_n_67e55ccce4b0d5fb5f3d85c1/liveblog_67eef091e4b0e2990bb6300d

-snip-

Aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters that his punishing global tariffs are "going to make our country very rich."

"Every country is calling us," Trump said. "That’s the beauty of what we do. We put ourselves in the drivers seat. If we would have asked these countries to do us a favor, they would have said no. Now they will do anything for us.”

April 3, 2025

Is the point of this to make heads of countries and CEO's grovel and negotiate? nt

April 2, 2025

'Severely Diminished' USAID Sends Disaster Relief Team Of Just 3 People To Myanmar

You have scroll down to find this in a series of updates on HuffPost. I have not seen it elsewhere.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-presidency-live-updates_n_67e55ccce4b0d5fb5f3d85c1

‘Severely Diminished’ USAID Sends Disaster Relief Team Of Just 3 People To Myanmar
Five days after a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake flattened high-rises in Myanmar and Thailand, killing more than 2,000 people, the State Department has dispatched a disaster-response team of just three people to the country, who will distribute $2 million in relief aid.

In the past, USAID, which used to be its own agency before it was gutted, likely illegally, by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and folded into the State Department, would have immediately dispatched Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) to the country to aid in search-and-rescue efforts.

The White House attempted to mobilize a DART team after the earthquake last Friday, but couldn’t, Andrew Natsios, who served as USAID administrator in George W. Bush's administration, told the BBC.

"The problem is they fired most of the 500 people that make up the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, so obviously there are no people [from the bureau] to be on the Dart team to be sent,” Natsios said.

He added that he was shocked Trump’s administration “didn't have the foresight to say 'Okay, let's retain these people'."

Jeremy Konyndyk, a former disaster response lead at USAID, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the U.S. missed the search-and-rescue window in Myanmar entirely as a result.

"It's not a case of worst-practice, it's really a case of no-practice," he said. “It just makes the US look, frankly, kind of weak and irrelevant to most of the other countries that have shown up in force to support the people of Myanmar."

For comparison’s sake, when a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria in 2023, USAID sent 225 people and $185 million.

"The capacity of the U.S. government to provide that kind of assistance right now is severely diminished, and we haven't seen any of it so far,” Sarah Charles, assistant to the administrator of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance under the Biden administration, told NPR.

March 31, 2025

Tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/5-things-to-know-about-tariffs-and-how-they-work

-snip-

Tariffs are a tax on imports.

Tariffs are typically charged as a percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller. In the United States, tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country.

-snip-

Mainstream economists are generally skeptical about tariffs, considering them an inefficient way for governments to raise revenue.

More at link.

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So, there is an account(s) within the US Treasury where tariff money is collected. The tariff percentage is paid by the US importer (buyer) to the US Treasury, not by the foreign country of origin as the public is being told.