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Abbott Aims to Pardon Racist Murderer Who Sent Explicit Texts to Apparent Minor
The governor didn't even wait a single day before calling for the potential pardon of racist murderer Daniel Perry. In the days following Abbott’s public pledge to pardon Perry, unsealed documents from the case, including Perry’s web searches and text messages, would reveal that he had made racist comments, previously considered killing people involved with racial justice protests, and most inconveniently for Republicans who have jumped on the “anti-groomer” bandwagon, had inappropriate text exchanges with an apparent 16-year-old girl after searching for “good chats to meet young girls.”
Turning Anti-Asian Hate into Law
My dad, an immigrant from Iran, bought our childhood home before he was a citizen of the United States. My parents still own this home where their four kids grew up, and where their grandkids now splash in the pool and ride their bikes around the driveway. When I read the text of SB 147, a xenophobic bill seeking to prohibit the right to own property based on national origin, I immediately thought of that house and everything it took to get there.
Mexican Cotton Farmers Struggle Over Genetically Modified Seed Rules
For almost a decade, Cornelius Letkeman Banman has produced cotton in El Oasis, a desert-like town in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where the climate is perfect for growing one of the country’s most economically significant crops—in fact conditions are so ideal, the state has become the country’s leading producer.
Austin PD’s Bad DNA Analysis Nearly Cost This Man His Life
Billy Faircloth was sentenced to 60 years in prison, but an appeals court overturned his conviction. On March 29, the Court of Criminal Appeals—the state’s highest criminal court—overturned the conviction of Billy Faircloth, who was sentenced to 60 years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2012. The state’s case against him relied on bad DNA analysis—a rampant problem in Austin under the regime of the defunct APD DNA lab.
The Who Behind ‘Where Wolf’
In Robert Saucedo’s horror-comedy graphic novel Where Wolf, a lycanthrope is racking up quite the body count in College Station, prompting journalist Larry Chaney to track it down. The hunt also provides Chaney relief from the occupational “ennui” he’s experiencing. His search soon puts him in touch with the local furry community, where the part-man, part-canis lupus assailant has gone to blend in—and to feast.
‘School Choice’ Is Just a Ploy to Defund Public Ed
The latest front in Christian nationalists’ battle to undermine separation of church and state. Vouchers and voucher-like schemes have been floated repeatedly by Republican legislators over the years, and just as repeatedly have been shot down by the combined opposition of Democrats, rural Republicans, and public school advocates. This time, however, GOP leaders are going all out to make vouchers—in the form of education savings accounts (ESAs)—a reality here in Texas under the sunny mantra “school choice.” As Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, founder and executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, told the Texas Observer, “‘School choice’ is a deceptive misnomer” because the choice lies not so much with parents as with the private schools, which “are highly selective about who they enroll and who they do not enroll. They will not take the economically disadvantaged, at-risk, special needs, socially and emotionally challenged child because it is too expensive to teach that child.”
‘We Are in a Crisis’: Texas Public Schools on the Edge
Vouchers and property tax cuts strike at a public school system already hemorrhaging hard-working employees. In early March, the old sewage pipes of a Houston public middle school broke. By noon, there were only two bathroom stalls for 1,200 students. At 2 p.m., sewage water started leaking out into the hallways. Teacher Traci Laston tried to push ahead instructing her class, but the students couldn’t focus.
More Than Just a Number
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Dragging Democracy into the Future
As the Texas Observer survives to muckrake another day, Steven Monacelli highlights the battle for fundamental rights happening in the Lone Star State. South By Southwest (SXSW) has been described by the scandal-ridden consulting firm McKinsey as a “contradiction” for remaining forward-looking and innovative into its third decade. As a first-time attendee of the massive annual conference, I can’t speak much to how SXSW 2023 compares to the past or whether it’s truly maintained its youthful spirit in spite of its age. But even to my fresh eyes, contradictions presented themselves time and time again during my five-day stint in and around the Austin Convention Center.
The Texas Observer Lives!
After a terrifying near-death experience, we live to muckrake another day. On Sunday, I was playing hide-and-seek with our 95-proud Golden Retriever when I got a call from Sewell Chan, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune. He sounded harried, urgent: “Gabe, I hate to mix business and friendship, but we have a 2,300-word story coming out. It’s sensitive. We’re being respectful and going into the full history. You’re in the story.”
Olive Klug’s Melancholy Mood: A Visit with TikTok’s Nonbinary Folk Music Star
“They're trying to sell us and sell to us, but they're also trying to kill us.”. The rich draperies and fancy fixtures of the Victorian Room at Austin’s historic Driskill Hotel feel more suited to high tea than a folk music set from a rising young social media star, but that’s where we found Olive Klug playing on a Saturday night at the tail end of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival earlier this month.
To our Texas Observer Community
This afternoon, the Texas Democracy Foundation has unanimously voted to rescind previous votes for layoffs. We have secured near-term pledges to bridge our immediate budget shortfall and feel confident that there is time for the Texas Observer to determine its future, thanks to the extraordinary success of the staff’s fundraising this week.
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