December 2016 - The Texas Observer

Most Recent in Politics:

1The GOP Machine in Texas Seems to Finally Have Slipped a Gear

2New Democrats Hope For a More Bipartisan Texas Senate in 2019

3Casey Gerald’s Memoir Isn’t the Inspirational Tale You Think It Is

4Ted Cruz Won Because of Rural Texas, but Beto Made Small Gains for Democrats

5The Midterms Trigger a Seismic Shift in Harris County’s Courts

6Trump’s Sabotage of ACA Enrollment Is Particularly Dangerous in Texas

Most Recent in Environment:

1In Texas, One of the World’s Oldest, Weirdest Fish Finally Gets its Due

2In East Texas, Chicken Plants are Polluting Rivers and Lakes with Oxygen-Sucking Contaminants

3Why Environmental Groups Are Salty on Corpus Christi’s Pricey Desalination Plan

4Despite Trump and Rick Perry’s Best Efforts, Another Coal Plant Eats the Dust in Texas

5Exxon Appears to Mislead State to Secure Tax Break

6After the Flood, the Political Storm?

Most Recent in Border:

1Border Patrol Calls Cops on Lawyers, Activists Trying to Attend ‘Stakeholder’ Meeting

3Border Residents Protest Trump’s Wall in Hidalgo County

4AUDIO: Melissa del Bosque and Rachel Poser on Border Patrol’s Unchecked Mission Creep

5More Than 150 Families Separated at the Border Remain Locked Up in Texas

6U.S. and Mexican Officials Collaborating to Stop Asylum-Seekers, Attorneys Allege

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1New Contract Could Give Austin One of the Most Transparent Police Departments in the Country

2Ken Paxton’s Strange Quest to Execute an Intellectually Disabled Man

3The Midterms Trigger a Seismic Shift in Harris County’s Courts

4Harris County Judges May Face a Reckoning Over Bail On Election Day

5Dallas County’s Cop-Convicting DA Is Among the Most Vulnerable Down-Ballot Republicans This Election

6Author Shane Bauer on How the Racist Roots of Private Prisons Still Permeate the System

Most Recent in Education:

1In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

2Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

3Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

4What’s in a Name? Texas SBOE Tentatively Approves ‘Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies’

5SMU Just Lost Its Independent Student Newspaper. Is Your College Next?

6Lawsuit: Texas Art Teacher Suspended Because She Told Students About Her Wife

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Meet the Scientist and Autism Dad Who’s Fighting the Anti-Vaccine Movement

2Trump’s Sabotage of ACA Enrollment Is Particularly Dangerous in Texas

3In the Rio Grande Valley, New Citizens Turn Out to Vote for the First Time

4We Support Pre-Existing Condition Protections, Say Republicans Who’ve Repeatedly Tried to Eliminate Them

5Meet Mikael Love, the OB-GYN Who Doesn’t Prescribe Birth Control

6Without Planned Parenthood, Almost Half the Providers in Texas’ Women’s Health Program Saw No Patients

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

2The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

3Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

4Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

5Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo on Sanctuary Cities, Police Unions and Tommy Guns

6Meet Nueces County’s New DA, a Self-Professed ‘Mexican Biker Lawyer Covered in Tattoos’

Most Recent in Books:

1The Lone Star State Teems with Snakes, Lizards and Toads in ‘Herping Texas’

2Octavio Solis’ ‘Retablos’ Recounts a ‘Beautiful, Messy’ Youth on the Border

3‘When I Spoke in Tongues’ Chronicles a Long Walk Away from the Church

4Casey Gerald’s Memoir Isn’t the Inspirational Tale You Think It Is

5‘Beyoncé in Formation’ is a Texas Professor’s Love Letter to Queen B

6Author Shane Bauer on How the Racist Roots of Private Prisons Still Permeate the System

Most Recent in Features:

1Raspa Revolution

2100 Ways to Draw a Line

3Homeward Bound

4The Sisterhood

5The Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Lower Pecos

Most Recent in Essay:

1Heads in the Mud

2The Day the Windows Shook

3Women’s Work

4I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

5Somewhere It Hides a Well

6Drinking the Kool-Aid at the Garden of Eden

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

2Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

3Eye on Texas: Transgender Youth in Texas

4Eye On Texas: Hurricane Harvey

5Eye on Texas: Fantastical Taxidermy

6Eye on Texas: Runners Take on 170-Mile Race in Big Bend

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

2Parallel Planes

4Poem: ‘Resistance’

5Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

6Poem: ‘To Be One with the All’

The Magazine: December 2016

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March 2015, Texas Observer cover

COVER STORY

Don Willett’s Quiet Revolution

Thu, Nov 17, 2016 |

Social media’s most famous judge is at the forefront of a conservative legal movement that's redefining what it means to be a judicial activist. And he's on Donald Trump's Supreme Court short list. Read More

In this Issue

Political Intelligence

Legal Loophole May Have Helped Houston Attorney Allegedly Defraud Immigrants

by Patrick Michels

Huge Oil Discovery May Endanger Solace of Balmorhea

by Naveena Sadasivam

News

Don Willett’s Quiet Revolution

CULTURE

In ‘Without Getting Killed or Caught,’ Guy Clark Defies Categorization

by Michael Sandlin

Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

by Kathleen Winter

State of Texas: The Bigger the Roof, the Closer to God

by Patrick Michels

by Leah Caldwell

If These Walls Could Talk

Columns

State Leaders on Atrocious Child Welfare System: Don’t Blame Us!

by Christopher Hooks

Love Will Trump Hate (Eventually)

by Andrea Grimes

State of Texas

State of Texas: The Bigger the Roof, the Closer to God

by Patrick Michels

Loon Star State

Loon Star State: Trump and the ‘Rigged Election’

Eye on Texas

Eye on Texas: ‘Normal Life’ in a Border Colonia

by Michael Cirlos