I don’t know what to say. It’s the morning after Trump won (again), and I’m cleaning up my back porch from the sad election party the night before. The leftover beers are still sitting in an ice chest, and they’re still cold. I want to inhale five of them. Driving down South Congress in Austin […]
Category: News
Posted inPolitics
We Live in Hell: Ted Cruz Still Represents Us
When Texas political leaders project images of themselves, it’s always the same. They’re in cowboy hats, boots, and toting a firearm. It’s how we like to imagine ourselves: the rugged cowboy, squinting into the distance, masculinely thinking about something. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is none of that. Instead, Cruz is our political reality: a smarmy, […]
Posted inCulture
Move Over Moo Deng — Texas Has Its Own Pygmy Hippo Now
Move over Moo Deng. Texas, meet Akobi, the newest, shiniest pygmy hippopotamus to ever live in Houston. This week, the Houston Zoo adorably announced the arrival of Akobi, which means “first born” in Yoruba, a West African language. The zoo says Akobi is a male 4 1/2-year-old pygmy hippo that recently moved to Texas from […]
Posted inOpinion
Think Voting Isn’t Worth It? You’re Doing It Wrong
There’s an old trope in Texas politics that “Texas isn’t a red state, it’s a non-voting state.” And it’s more or less true — fewer than half of the Texans who are registered to vote cast a ballot in the 2022 gubernatorial election. In total, nearly 14 million Texans who were able to vote chose […]
Posted inPolitics
The Right Is Already Disrupting the Election. Let Us Help You Unpack the Chaos.
It’s old hat to say everything is bigger in Texas. True connoisseurs know that things in the Lone Star State are also often wilder and weirder than what you see on the evening news. Every two weeks, Steven Monacelli will explore the dystopic, desperate, and despicable realities of contemporary Texas and channel the sense of […]
Posted inNews
Texas OB-GYNs Beg Politicians to ‘Do Something’ After Deaths of Pregnant Women
A group of 111 OB-GYNs in Texas sent a letter to state leaders on Sunday, urging them to change abortion laws that they say are blocking them from delivering lifesaving care to pregnant women. They’re begging lawmakers to re-evaluate policies that hinder the most basic function of their jobs: keeping people alive. “Texas needs a […]
Posted inOpinion
Reproductive Rights Are a Five-Alarm Fire. State Legislators Must Act.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold Texas’s draconian emergency abortion ban isn’t just a setback for reproductive freedoms in America — it’s a five-alarm fire. This November, voters across the country have the chance to fight back. Reproductive freedoms will be a make-or-break issue for many voters at the ballot box. A 2024 […]
Posted inHealth
Texas’ Anti-Abortion Laws Killed an 18-Year-Old This Time
Another day, another report of a woman dying because of Texas’ steadfast refusal to grant half the population bodily autonomy. This time, the victim was Nevaeh Crain, a pregnant 18-year-old East Texas resident, who died after three separate emergency room visits in October of 2023. Each time, ProPublica reported that Crain returned home from the […]
Posted inOpinion
Where Have You Gone, George W. Bush?
On Oct. 10, former President Barack Obama stepped back into the political fray. Former President Donald Trump had spent weeks dominating news cycles with lies about Haitian-born immigrants eating neighbors’ pets in Ohio, lies about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris being a Marxist, and still more lies about the 2020 election being rigged against him. […]
Posted inHealth
A Houston Mother Died After Doctors Refused to Treat Her Miscarriage
Earlier this year, a Georgia woman named Amber Thurman became the country’s first “preventable” death following the overturn of Roe v Wade. This week, Texas got its own case. Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old Honduran mother in Houston, died in 2021 after suffering a miscarriage at 17 weeks pregnant, according to ProPublica reporters Cassandra Jaramillo and […]