Photo Credit: Mike Rastiello Singer-songwriter Gary P. Nunn sometimes closes his shows with a ripping rendition of “You Ask Me What I Like About Texas.” Ah, Texas! The Lone Star Beer, the barbecue, the boots, the bullshit, the batshit-crazy candidates routinely elected to public office. Among the elected officials is a Republican attorney general so religiously homophobic […]

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  Photo Credit: Justin Hoch March 3 will mark the 25th anniversary of the videotaped beating of Rodney King in South Central Los Angeles—an event that history may regard as the unofficial commencement of what we now call the Black Lives Matter movement. The video surprised many white Americans, but very few African-Americans. (Seventeen years […]

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Photo Credit: Tobin  Is it possible for an epidemic to be invisible? Since 1991 the annual number of newly documented cases of thyroid cancer in the United States has skyrocketed from 12,400 to 62,450. It’s now the seventh most common type of cancer. Relatively little attention is paid to the butterfly-shaped thyroid gland that wraps around […]

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This past June, pulp novelist Brad Meltzer revealed that, while he was touring Secret Service headquarters for research on a White House thriller, agents shared with him what Meltzer called a “secret.” President Ronald Reagan packed heat. “It’s true,” they said. “A .38. Reagan used to hide it in his briefcase and take it on Air Force […]

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Photo Credit: Toby Marks I was covering a committee hearing in the Texas House 25 years ago when a legislator asked a witness an interesting question: “Are there any unintended consequences we’re not anticipating?” At the time, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, swept into office by evangelicals and Tea Partiers in 2014, was the host […]

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