Most Recent in Politics:

1‘Nobody’s Beating You,’ Trump Assures John Cornyn

2State Investigators Identify ‘Serious Contractual Violations’ by the Heidi Group

3Governor Launches Camp, Backs ‘Mega-Tent’ for Austin’s Homeless, Surprising Advocates

4Will a High-Stakes Suburban Houston State House Race Give Texas Dems 2020 Vision?

5‘El Paso Will Never Heal’: Three Months Later, the Border Town Still Reels

6Bonnen’s Downfall Proves Politicians Don’t Mind Dirty Laundry—So Long as It’s Never Aired

Most Recent in Environment:

1The Long Battle to Stop the Kinder Morgan Pipeline

2Landowners Got One Hill Country Oil Pipeline Moved. But Can They Do It Again?

3Beautiful Ruins: ‘Anthropocene’ Is a Sobering Ecological Prophecy

4Tropical Storm Imelda Will Likely Be Southeast Texas’ Fifth 500-Year Flood in Five Years

5The Green New Deal Can Exist in Texas

6How BP Oil Spill Fines Could Help Protect the Texas Coast

Most Recent in Border:

1When ICE Emptied Out an All-Women Detention Center in Texas, Chaos Ensued

2The Fear—and Hope—of Living in Sanctuary

3Editorial: Reckoning with El Paso

4If DACA Ends, It Would Be a ‘Catastrophe’ For Dreamers

5Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

6Federal Judges Temporarily Block Public Charge Rule, but Public Health Worries Persist

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Having My Period in Prison Was Awful. In Texas, That May Finally Change.

2The Movement to Free Rodney Reed Illustrates the Growing Unease Over Texas’ Use of the Death Penalty

3Potter County Criminal Defense System is Lambasted in a New Report

4Watch: ‘Life and Death in a Carceral State’

5Dallas Is What Happens When People Can’t Trust Police

6Death in Solitary

Most Recent in Education:

1The Creature of Martin Creek Lake Won’t Die

2The Cost of Carve-Outs

3Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

4Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

5‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

6‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Scenes from a Rural Hospital’s Final Day

2State Investigators Identify ‘Serious Contractual Violations’ by the Heidi Group

3Critical Condition

4A Dying Town

5The Supreme Court Taking Up Louisiana’s Abortion Case ‘Flies in the Face of Precedent’

6Some Small Texas Towns Are Declaring Themselves ‘Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn’

Most Recent in The Interview:

1If a Glacier Melts in the Arctic, the Texas Coast Feels It

2Without Transmission Lines, Renewable Energy Still has a Long Way to Go — Literally

3The Dissenter

4The Interview: Mass Resistance

5Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

6Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

Most Recent in Books:

1American Cities Weren’t Revitalized by the White ‘Creative Class.’ Immigrants Made Them Great.

2Short Story Contest Winner: ‘Dear Mr. Gottlieb’

3Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

4An Observer Staff Guide to the 2019 Texas Book Festival

5A Bold New Memoir Struggles to Reconcile Faith and Feminism

6Janis Joplin’s Inimitable Voice

Most Recent in Features:

1The Ghosts of Jefferson

2Little Arthouse on the Prairie

3The Clothes that Make the Man

4Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

5Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

6At Home in the World

Most Recent in Essay:

1Having My Period in Prison Was Awful. In Texas, That May Finally Change.

2Up From the Desert

3To Understand the El Paso Massacre, Look to the Long Legacy of Anti-Mexican Violence at the Border

4Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

5The Trouble with Yoga

6Heads in the Mud

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

2Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

3Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

4Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

5Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

6Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

2Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

3Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

4Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

5Parallel Planes

6Options

Frank Smyth

By Frank Smyth:

Stories

The Untouchable Narco-State

by Frank Smyth | Fri, Nov 18, 2005 at 12:00 am CST

Archives

Bankrolling Beltway Badges

Meet the Law Enforcement Alliance that violates the law with IRS impunity

Fri, Jul 30, 2004 |

Kirk Watson cannot forget the first time he saw it. Watson, a former Austin mayor, was running as the Democratic nominee for state attorney general. Only about 10 days remained before the 2002 November election. His campaign was in full … Read More

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