Opinion

Thanks To A Former President, Astros Haters Have A New Strategy In 2021

Thanks To A Former President, Astros Haters Have A New Strategy In 2021

Opinion: How Did Turner End Up in This Mess?

Opinion: How Did Turner End Up in This Mess?

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Refugees Are Not Our Exploitable Work Force

By Jef Rouner
Sep 29, 2021

There are two kinds of crises down at the southern border depending on who you listen to. According to the many Republican fundraising emails I get, the biggest problems is that thousands of people are “invading” the country, bringing poverty, disease, and crime. For those of us who have a...
Opinion: The Time-Tested Practice of Using Transphobia to Seize Power

By Jef Rouner
Sep 20, 2021

When Joe Biden was finally certified as president earlier this year, I literally began shaking with relief. However, the American Experiment is actually in more danger now than it’s ever been and avoiding a total fascist collapse will require monumental resources of resolve and action. It will also mean looking...
Thanks To You Unvaccinated Jerks, Here's What's Left Of 2021's Movie Releases

By Pete Vonder Haar
Sep 8, 2021

So the last time we did one of these, the global box office had just enjoyed one of its best years, theaters (and sports arenas, and concert venues) were cheerfully packed to capacity, and the virus that would come to be known as COVID-19 had only just surfaced in a Chinese...
Opinion: The Taliban Didn’t Take Over Texas, Christians Did

By Jef Rouner
Sep 7, 2021

There are a ton of memes going around now that basically say, “no one could have prepared for how quickly the Taliban would retake Texas.” The implication is that the recent forced-birth law is similar to that of Islamic extremism in the Middle East following the end of the Afghanistan...
Opinion: Texas, Where Republican Leaders Have Gaslighted Us All

By Jef Rouner
Sep 3, 2021

It’s been a very bad week in Texas. The so-called “heartbeat bill” went into effect, essentially ending reproductive freedom. The draconian election bill custom designed to disenfranchise marginalized people passed the Senate. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick wanted to hold the entire legislative branch’s pay hostage so he could have transphobic,...
Opinion: Texas' Anti-Abortion Senate Bill 8 Should Scare Everyone

By Erika Forbes
Aug 30, 2021

American women have fought for agency over our own bodies well throughout history. For more than a few decades here in the state of Texas, that fight has not been easy. Restrictive moves by political leaders aside, just having a coherent and productive conversation on reproductive health and abortion has...
I Can’t Believe I Have to Worry About School Dress Codes in a Plague

By Jef Rouner
Aug 26, 2021

I took the Kid With One F shopping for some back-to-school non-binary finery this past weekend, and as frustrating as that always is it was made even more maddening by the fact that adhering to school dress codes in the middle of a pandemic seems more ridiculous than toothpaste-flavored chips...
How Comfortable is Greg Abbott With His New Persona?

By Dianna Wray
Aug 20, 2021

We have to hand it to him: With his border wall plans, no-mask mandates, Texas Legislature antics and all the rest of his recent political hijinks, Gov. Greg Abbott is proving to be more, let’s say, entertaining than we ever expected him to be. In fact, after a political career...
Simone Biles Owes Us Nothing

By Jef Rouner
Jul 29, 2021

The decision of Simone Biles to pull herself out of both individual and team competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics shocked the world. Less shocking is how a young woman (and a Black woman at that) experiencing a mental health episode would be immediately demonized. Texas Deputy Attorney General Aaron...
Simone Biles Also Withdraws From Individual All-Around in a Post-Karolyi Era

By Dianna Wray
Jul 28, 2021

After her shocking withdrawal from the U.S. women’s gymnastics team finals on Tuesday due to mental health concerns, Houston’s own Simone Biles has now—perhaps less surprisingly—announced that she will not be competing in the individual all-around competition, and will be evaluated daily to see if she can compete in the...
Fox News is Trying to Kill My Dad (And Probably Yours, Too)

By Jef Rouner
Jul 27, 2021

I spent a very frustrating weekend trying to convince my father to go get vaccinated. He’s in his 70s with both multiple sclerosis and lymphoma. With the Delta Variant running through the unvaccinated population like a grim reaper that has discovered mechanized farming equipment, I decided the time was right...
How Self-Identified “Liberals” Get Radicalized to the Far Right

By Jef Rouner
Jul 7, 2021

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reporting on both ivermectin as a COVID cure and the newest wave of dangerous anti-vaccination nonsense (spoiler: the two are deeply related). Since then, my email has been a non-stop neurotic cabaret of screwballs, but a lot of the anger comes from the...
I Think COVID Might Have Irreparably Damaged Our Kids

By Jef Rouner
Jul 6, 2021

Every Independence Day since my child was three, the Kid With One F has spent the night with my mother. Mum lives out on a big plot of land just outside Channelview where no one cares that the night will be filled with fireworks. Combined with my stepdad’s love of...
10 Fun Facts About Ivermectin, the COVID “Wonder Drug”

By Jef Rouner
Jul 1, 2021

Ivermectin has been touted as the miracle cure to COVID-19 that is being actively suppressed by Big Pharma and the world’s governments. It’s become particularly popular with people who are against efforts to vaccinate the population against coronavirus. But what exactly is ivermectin? Let’s learn some fun facts together! 10...
Free Britney, B*tch!

By John Amar
Jun 28, 2021

Oops!...she transcended the media again. Not with record breaking album sales or a titillating MTV VMA performance, but with a terrifying courtroom testimony in a watershed moment that exposed her grim reality under the inhumane treatment of her conservatorship helmed by her father Jamie Spears — the only snake wrapped...
Opinion: Doxing is Not Some New Antifa Tactic; It’s Old Right-Wing Terrorism

By Jef Rouner
Jun 24, 2021

One of the most frustrating articles I’ve read this year appeared in the Washington Post earlier this week. Crime reporter Robert Klemko did a deep dive into the life of Edward Jeremy Dawson, a man who has been a part of various far-right groups linked to violence like Patriot Prayer...
Racist Backlash About Netflix's Sandman Casting Gets its Own Backlash

By Jef Rouner
Jun 7, 2021

When it was announced that Black British actress Kirby Howell-Baptiste would be playing the role of Death in Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s celebrated comic book series Sandman, the reaction from some corners of the internet was as vicious as it was predictable. The Prince of Stories has been...
AstroWorld Fan Shuts Down Homophobe in Awesome Way

By Jef Rouner
Jun 3, 2021

Happy Pride Month. Would you like to see a ridiculous homophobe get absolutely owned by a woman in an AstroWorld hoodie? Me too! The person screaming in this Tik Tok uploaded by boilyourbottoms is known as Sister Cindy Smock. She and her husband, Brother Jed, travel around to various college campuses...
What the U.S. Senate Needs to Learn from Texas About the Filibuster

By Jef Rouner
Jun 3, 2021

The filibuster is currently one of the most hotly debated topics in national politics. The threat of one is enough to hamstring the United States Senate so that nothing can pass without a 60-vote majority. This includes the recent commission on the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January...
Op Ed: Border Agents Took My Truck, and the Supreme Court Shrugged

By Gerardo Serrano
Jun 2, 2021

Some people do not like to be told no. I learned this lesson the hard way on Sept. 21, 2015, at a border checkpoint in Eagle Pass, Texas. Although I was born in Chicago, I have family in Mexico that I had not seen in years. So I drove from...