Free Republic

Houston State Senator Paul Bettencourt is calling on Mayor Sylvester Turner to halt controversial public housing projects until the coronavirus shutdown is over. The Houston Housing Authority claims it cannot provide public records on the planned 84-million-dollar land deals because it is closed for business, all while they’re moving ahead to close on the real estate deals. “It is anti-transparency,” says Sen. Bettencourt. “Just because you’ve got a COVID pandemic, there’s nothing that should suspend public knowledge of these projects and you shouldn’t use that as a reason not to provide the information. The mayor should not be proceeding.” The...

The Department of Health and Human Services has tapped Hewlett-Packard to replace Verizon Communications' Terremark subsidiary as the Web-hosting provider for HealthCare.gov, the federal health insurance marketplace that has had a troubled rollout since launching in October. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services division confirmed the move Wednesday but noted that the change in providers had been contracted well before the website launched. "As we think about the overall performance and functionality of the site, redundancy is a critical part of our planning and we are working to ensure it in all aspects of the system,"...

Here’s some ObamaCare implementation news from around the interwebs: “Minnesota Facing Bigger Bill For State’s Health Insurance Exchange“: Kaiser Health News reports Minnesota has increased its spending projections for operating the state’s ObamaCare Exchange by somewhere between 35-80 percent for 2015. Spending on the Exchange will rise by another 19 percent in the following year. More at this link: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/obamacare-implementation-news/

Closely allied with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), HHA was established for the singular purpose of trying to ban Mr. Savage, host of the daily program The Savage Nation, from the airwaves. Toward this end, it has sent letters urging the program’s sponsors to “stop supporting” the “hate speech” of a “hatemonger” and to “pull their advertising dollars” from Savage’s show. This campaign was ostensibly sparked by what HHA calls Savage’s “history of hateful and bigoted comments against minorities including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Catholics, Jews, immigrants and women.” But clearly HHA’s chief concern is the broadcaster’s critical commentary...