Christopher Hooks
By Christopher Hooks:
Texas is a Purple State Now. The Proof is in Last Night’s Results.
Will Alex Jones Pay for Peddling Far-Right Sandy Hook Conspiracies?
The Austin judge presiding over two defamation cases against the InfoWars founder indicated there’s a solid chance Jones will have to go to trial — again.
Illustration/Sunny Sone Few people in our era would seem to have as unbalanced a karmic checkbook as Alex Jones, the loudest man in Texas. For years, long before “fake news” was a thing, Jones, who started his career as the … Read More
I Watched Dinesh D’Souza’s New Movie with the Travis County GOP
D’Souza is lying to his audiences on a vast scale, making them more immune to a shared reality.
Dinesh D’Souza’s first words in his new movie, Death of a Nation: Can We Save America A Second Time?, have the unmistakable ring of accidental truth. “When I was a boy,” he says in voiceover, “I was curious about the … Read More
On the Road With Beto: Is O’Rourke’s Personality-Driven Campaign Reaching the Right Voters?
On the Road With Beto: Is O’Rourke’s Personality-Driven Campaign Reaching the Right Voters? The next several months will be an experiment at break-neck speed to see if O’Rourke can overcome low name recognition and build a rapport with non-white voters. … Read More
Dan Patrick, the Person, is Trying to Save the World from Dan Patrick, the Politician
When Patrick is presented with collective problems, his response is inevitably to respond in terms of individual action.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced last week that he would personally donate “up to 10” metal detectors to Santa Fe ISD, the school district where eight students and two teachers were killed by a mass shooter in May. As a … Read More
In a System that Encourages Corruption, Prison-Bound Senator Carlos Uresti was Inevitable
The state’s part-time Legislature and weak ethics laws allow corruption to flourish. Uresti was just stupid and brazen enough to get caught.
It’s one thing to be useless and honest, and another thing to be useful and crooked, but it’s another thing entirely to be useless and crooked. Useless and crooked: That’s how former state Senator Carlos Uresti ends his more than … Read More
The ‘Crazies’ Have Fully Taken Over the Texas GOP
At the state GOP convention, Dan Patrick said his side had “won.” He’s right.
At the Texas Republican Party Convention last week, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick did what so many conquerors ultimately do: He declared peace. The GOP civil war that has done so much to define political life in Texas during the last … Read More
Dan’s the Man, Now
Dan Patrick and Donald Trump can provide enough favors, and dish out enough pain, to easily secure the loyalty of people who care primarily about money.
Last summer, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was neck deep in a dehumanizing and convoluted political brawl over the ability of transgender people to use the appropriate bathroom. It was the kind of thing that seems to give the former talk … Read More
Taking Stock of Texas Democrats After the 2018 Runoff Election
In what should be a pretty good year for the party, the situation doesn’t look rosy.
The life of a Texas Democrat is full to the brim with dramatic irony, but especially so in the last 18 years, since the good millennium gave way to the bad millennium. In the first decade of this century, Democrats … Read More
The Jade Helm Fiasco Says More About Texas Than it Does Russia
Even if Russia had nothing to do with Jade Helm, the episode is still evidence for the proposition that the American body politic is weak and easy to manipulate.
Today in Gregwatch, the Observer’s trademarked series for enthusiasts of Governor Abbott, we have a new fan theory to discuss. First flagged by the Texas Democratic Party, it comes courtesy of Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, … Read More