Subscription Information

 

WHAT DO I GET?

A subscription entitles the subscriber full access to the web site. Current features include:

The Daily Buzz: Daily postings of news, gossip and matters of interest to the Texas political community. It also includes columns and scripts written by editor Harvey Kronberg for newspapers and television broadcasts. Stories are added to the site as they develop through the course of the day.

The News Clips: Every weekday morning, our staff reviews dozens of publications from Texas and around the country looking for stories that would be of interest to folks interested in politics and government. We try to have the clips ready for you by 9 AM. We provide the news source, the headline and a key sentence to all web site visitors. However, the hot link that actually takes you to the story is only active for subscribers.

We try to vary newspapers if they are all carrying the same major story.

The R&D Department: Originally designed to promote the columns of anonymous Republican and Democratic writers, this part of the page is now the home of a variety of columnists which currently include former Republican Party political director Royal Masset, environmental reporter Duggan Flanakin, former San Antonio Light Capitol reporter Ed Sills, and general all-around curmudgeon Edd O'Donnell. Each columnist brings decades of experience in their fields to the table.

The Search Engine: As of this writing (December 1,2005), there are over 7,500 stories covering Texas politics. The Search Engine will retrieve stories from the BUZZ and the R&D Department, but not from the News Clips

The Links: An ever-expanding index of news, public interest, campaign, government and advocacy sites compiled to make it easy and time efficient to find out what your friends and opponents are thinking and saying. This portion of the site is currently available to all.

Email Notification: We respect your time. Although we permit everyone, including non-subscribers, to get on our email notification list, the service is intended to respect the our paid subscribers' time so that they do not have to constantly hit the site to see if new information has been posted.

PDA Notification: Our subscribers may sign up for notification on their PDA(or other mobile email device). The notifications received on a PDA will contain news as the situation warrants. As a subscriber without any additional site licenses you can signup one PDA address to receive notifications. If you have additional site licenses, you may enter as many PDA addresses as you have site licenses.

We typically send an email notice in the morning with a list of the headlines posted in the News Clips section so you can decide whether to log on. Likewise, in the afternoon, we send an email notice when we are wrapping up the Daily Buzz for the day -- this notice also includes headlines. We try to avoid burying you with email but we will send out notices when serious news is breaking.

When the Legislature is in session and timely information is at a premium, many of our clients have their email notifications directed to their pagers or Palm Pilots. You can have email notifications go to multiple locations at no additional fee. However, only paid subscribers can access password protected materials.

WHAT IS THE COST?

Single Online Subscription: $325 a year

Site License: For offices with multiple users, the site licenses may be added for $84.00 each.

A site license entitles that number of people to log on with the same user name and password at the same time.

Please note that we do intermittently check for password abuse.

HOW DO I SUBSCRIBE?

  • Hit the green Subscribe button on the menu bar above.
  • Hit the third option, Subscribe Now
  • That will take you to registration form that you will need to fill out. You will be prompted to choose a simple subscription or a subscription with additional site licenses. You will have the option to include a purchase order number if it is required by your corporation or state agency.
  • If you are sales tax exempt, you can so indicate. By indicating that you are tax exempt, you are subject to the same rules of perjury were you to submit a false written sales tax exemption certificate.
  • Be sure to pick a user name and password you will remember. However, should you forget, you can contact us and we will happily look it up for you.
  • If you are a current subscriber and want to add site license user, you will need the account number. Your invoice will reflect pro-rated costs so that all subscriptions expire simultaneously.

    • HOW DO I PAY?

    We provide two options on the sign up sheet. You can choose to use our encrypted server to pay by credit card or you can choose to be invoiced.

    Terms for invoices are 30 days. You will receive a notice every day you log in indicating the time remaining on your 30 days. If payment has not been received by the 30th day, your user name and password become inactive.

    Whether you pay by credit card or check, we immediately email you a copy of your invoice. We typically follow up with hard copy through the mail within the next two weeks. REMEMBER: Your thirty days begins from the time you first sign on and not when you receive your hard copy invoice.