Social Policy

Texas Conservatives Observe 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade With Ridiculous Press Releases

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case that originated in Texas with Norma McCorvey and ultimately led to the Supreme Court sweeping away a number of state and federal abortion restrictions. Because of Roe, terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester is between a wo ... More >>

Judge Denies Planned Parenthood's Request to Let Them Back in Texas Women's Health Program

Let's do this quickly, so you can incorporate it into all the sorrows you're about drown after you leave work today. A state judge has denied Planned Parenthood's request for a temporary injunction that would have allowed them to rejoin the Texas Women's Health Program. According to Mary Tuma, a r ... More >>

"Abortion Affiliates" Banned From the New Texas Women's Health Program, But Doctors Allowed To Talk About Abortion

The new Texas Women's Health Program is really going to be special. And by "special," we mean terrible. But as the Texas Tribune reports , state officials have made one tiny concession in response to complaints from women's advocacy and medical groups: Doctors will now be allowed to discuss the exis ... More >>

A Romney-Ryan Win Would Mean a Ban on Abortions, But Bans Don't Stop Abortions

Lead editorial in The New York Times this morning -- "If Roe v Wade Goes" -- got me thinking: let's say the Romney/Ryan ticket wins. How long will it take for Texas to make abortion illegal? Romney used to support Roe v. Wade, but now he joins Ryan in proposing that abortion be made a crime except ... More >>

Texas Plans to Use Medicaid Expansion it Rejected to Pay For Women's Health Program

In early June, Governor Rick Perry was quick to announce that no state of his would be taking any of that tyrannical federal money to expand Medicaid coverage. Yet court documents filed by outgoing Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs claim that the state's new, Planned Parenthood-free W ... More >>

Perry Says NO-bamacare for Texas

This morning, in a move about as surprising as the sun rising, Governor Rick Perry came out with guns blazing against the Affordable Health Care Act, recently approved (mostly) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act's expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor will not be implemented in Perry's state, de ... More >>

What the Supreme Court's Ruling On Arizona's Immigration Law Means for Farmers Branch

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona's illegal immigration law Monday morning, leaving its most controversial, show-me-your-papers provision standing, and that only provisionally. Experts say the decision provides a road map to federal courts evaluating immigration laws enacted in plac ... More >>

Farmers Branch Has Spent Five Years and Millions of Dollars Trying to Keep Out Mexicans. Is It Time for a Truce?

Have Babies and Young Children, Dallas? You Might Want to Get Vaccinated Against Whooping Cough

Cases of pertussis, widely known as whooping cough, are on a "modest" uptick in Dallas County, county health officials say. So far this year, the number of cases is higher than in 2010 and 2011. And with the death of one infant this year, health officials say it's "very important for all adults who ... More >>

Texas AG Greg Abbott Is Suing the Feds Over the Women's Health Program

We realize you're probably too busy side-stepping puddles of green puke to give much of a shit about what's going on in Austin. Nonetheless, we feel obliged to note that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit late yesterday against the federal government over its decision to withdraw fed ... More >>

How To Not Get Deported

So, you're an undocumented immigrant. Your great hope is to stick around, make a living and, some day, become naturalized. Unfortunately, our immigration laws are a tangled morass of inscrutability, insensible to the realities of a globalized world. You may have watched last week's Republican deba ... More >>

Ron Paul: Friend of Liberty, but not Mexicans.

Tom Leppert Reviews Obama's Immigration Policy Speech Given in El Paso Tuesday

Official White House Photo by Pete SouzaPresident Obama in El Paso on Tuesday​No doubt you're well aware that President Barack Obama was in El Paso yesterday, where he said that "genuine, comprehensive reform" was the only way to repair a "broken immigration system." In his speech, posted in its e ... More >>

Deuell Language: Planned Parenthood Says Politics Messing With Women's Health Care

Bob Deuell​The state Senate Committee on Health and Human Services voted yesterday in favor of a bill that would renew the Women's Health Program, a Medicaid-funded program that provides basic women's health care. It was set to expire this year unless the Lege took action, but now that it has the ... More >>

Mass deportation, strict border enforcement, amnesty. What will comprehensive immigration reform look like if the feds take action--or if they don't?

Mexican Macro-economics

FAIR-y Tales

Russell Pearce and Other Illegal-Immigration Populists Rely on Misleading, Right-Wing Reports to Scapegoat Immigrants and Terrify Penny-Pinched Americans.

Illegal Immigrants, Desperate To Find Work In The U.S., Risk Kidnapping, Rape and Murder From Those Smuggling Them Across the Border

In Battle Between Feds and States Over Arizona's Immigration Law, Guess Which Side Rick Perry and Greg Abbott Are On?

Danny FulgencioGovernor Rick Perry​Arizona's new immigration law has been a polarizing political issue to say the least, with President Obama challenging its constitutionality through the Department of Justice by launching a July 6 lawsuit against Arizona and Governor Janice Brewer. So it was ... More >>

For Those Living in Ground Zero for Drug Trafficking Along the U.S.-Mexico Border, the Illegal Immigration Crisis is Personal

Badlands

Wait a dang Minute Man: Who's This Guy Filling in for the Mexican?

Arlington PD Says It Doesn't Want to Be in the Business of Enforcing Immigration Laws

CopShop.com​While Irving makes the occasional headline with its use of the Criminal Alien Program -- which involves turning over to federal immigration officials people detained for any reason, even traffic violations --  top cops in Arlington have taken a stand against that approach. Instead ... More >>

Outside a Quiet Two-Party Town Hall, Health Care Demonstrators Take To the Streets

Patrick MichelsDemonstrators on both sides of the debate shared space outside this morning's town hall meeting with Rep. Pete Sessions and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson.​Update: Check out our slide show for more photos from the meeting and the protest.Walking up to the health care reform protest outs ... More >>

Villafranca's Bid for Farmers Branch Council Has Very Little to Do With Immigration Issues

Steve SatterwhiteElizabeth Villafranca with daughter Natalie, who's now 9 and ... working on a documentaryElizabeth Villafranca entered the limelight in 2006, as Farmers Branch began its illegal-immigrant battle that rages to this day. As we mentioned earlier this week, the Cuquitas co-owner has dec ... More >>

Ask a Mexican

Hail Cesar, who was capable of changing his mind

Old-Time Religion and New Americans

Hispanic evangelical leaders join to push for compassionate immigration reform

March on Oak Cliff. Well, In Oak Cliff.

Swift Justice? Not Bloody Likely.

Needle Point

You Know Who Likes the President's Immigration Reform Plan? Nobody, That's Who.

Rafael Anchia Wants to Kill Anti-Immigration Legislation Dead. Good Luck With All That.

Anchia to Tackle "Divisive and Misguided" Anti-Immigration Legislation

The Big Foist

Farmers Branch Needs Dough to Fight "Frivolous Lawsuits." Yeah, Frivolous. Right.

Who Brought the Minutemen to Garland? A Former City Council Member, Looks Like.

The Hunted

Minutemen train their sights on a new target: Hispanic day laborers

Watching Chorizo Getting Made

Splitsville

No border fences make for mad neighbors in Farmers Branch

Southern Hospitality

Surprised that Dallas' massive immigration rally went so well? Then you must be a Yankee.

Simple minds

ICE, ICE, baby

Tax Dollars at Work

Hey, armed robbers need bullets, too!

Walk the Walk

Can shoe leather and signs change immigration law?

The Resurrection of Sandy Kress

Or, how a Democrat and reviled former DISD board president found a happy home pushing "educational acoountability" for the GOP

Sins of a Preacher Man

Until his overthrow, Bill Price led the Texas anti-abortion movement for 17 years. Was it politics, ego, or something worse that did him in?

The kids aren't all right

The Americanized culture of undocumented immigrants finds the doors to higher education closed

Proof of citizenship

The INS is asking the impossible of a Laotian refugee who believes he's an American

Doling for dollars

The Cold War over, defense giant Lockheed Martin mines another government program for profit -- the war on poverty

Gimme Shelter

With public housing under assault from Congress, the Justice Department, and HUD, Dallas tenants' advocate Alice Basey is part of a grassroots movement fighting to keep poor families from going homeless

Betty's In Charge

Is Dallas County's most explosive bureaucrat ruining the health department?

Letters