Gus Bova

BREAKING: DHS waives dozens of laws to rush border wall construction through Big Bend State Park.

They want to rob this iconic western landscape from all of us, locking away our fishing holes & campsites behind concrete and steel. It's a grotesque act of political vandalism.

March 2026 Primary Election Endorsements for the Austin Area • The Austin Chronicle The Chronicle Editorial Board provides the following endorsements to Democrats in advance of early voting (Feb. 17 through Feb. 27) and election day, Tuesday, March 3. We urge readers to be thorough w...

Austin Chronicle endorsements are out. Anecdotally, I think these are still genuinely influential locally. They stick with the Austinites up top (Talarico, Goodwin). They kinda punt on HD49 with a dual endorse: www.austinchronicle.com/news/march-2...

Despite Pressure From Abbott, AISD Students Keep Up Anti-ICE Protests • The Austin Chronicle On Friday, Feb. 6, at about 2pm, hundreds of students at Clint Small Middle School walked out of class with backpacks on and posters in their hands to protest the actions of U.S. Immigration and Custo...

A much more likable version of conservatism is the old "if you're not a liberal at 20..." line, vs. the current Texas regime's approach of: We will punish you until you like us www.austinchronicle.com/news/despite...

The only one of these organizing efforts I reported on, back when I still reported on things, was the Statesman one. They fought for their contract for *so* long and then the paper got sold almost immediately

Inbox: Union workers with ProPublica, Texas Tribune, and the Austin American-Statesman picketing downtown today:

How Trump's ICE Is Locking Up Longtime Texans with Paths to Legal Status The case of one Houston man, nearly deported to India after a quarter-century here, shows what happens when prosecutorial discretion is abandoned.

Smart reporting here from @jlbuch.bsky.social www.texasobserver.org/trump-ice-de...

AWFUL news tonight. This blesses the “mandatory” detention in the 5th Circuit without bond (and little chance at habeas) of every undocumented immigrant who originally entered across the border, no matter how many decades in the past.

It will fuel ICE’s push to transfer people to Texas immediately.

You’ll get more out of @texasobserver.org than the Washington Post even if you don’t live in Texas

Based on recent elections, we've basically all accepted that Abbott is untouchable even in a blue wave. But is there really no point at which this kind of noxious overbearing stuff ever pushes him down to the Cruz/Paxton level?

For the Texas Observer, the data probably tells us to go back 72 years and never start this crazy thing...

Never a better time to subscribe -- consider it a snub to Jeff Bezos personally texasobserver.org/join

A Cool-Headed Guide to the Fiery Crockett-Talarico Texas Primary Do we hate ourselves as much as the Democratic Party hates itself? This breakdown of the U.S. Senate primary drama says yes.

Does "iron sharpens iron" apply in a Texas Democratic primary? Or is it more like... Heat melts butter, and everyone is butter www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

Photo shows a young girl with her cat

This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year.

She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again.

Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/

For months Governor Abbott secretly deployed the Texas National Guard into ICE detention facilities, even forcing them to work in the detention center that imprisoned Liam Ramos and a two month old baby.

Super packed meeting in Austin to hear about Austin PD relationship with ICE. This is just like the front portion of the school cafeteria

Ok helpful: chief confirms that if officer calls ICE and runs it up the chain, the person should no longer be detained then and be free to leave

Ok maybe not calming down but anyhoo no new info re: PD policy

On to a q&a and things kinda calming.

Overall, APD chief is promising that officers will not ask for immigration status and is heavily suggesting that if an officer calls ICE for admin warrant, a commander will then tell officer not to hold the person for ICE to come

Lots of crowd interruption and yelling. They want, in my view, for Austin to openly defy the state's sanctuary cities ban

Chief: again, officers will not themselves ask for status

APD chief: when cop sees admin warrants -- the majority will not call -- when they do call, it will raise to a commander to decide whether to wait for ICE, and priority will not be to wait

APD chief: "The Austin police department does not ask immigration status" ... But issue of ICE administrative warrants: it says "call ice" when cops see them in their system... 2017 SB 4 does not allow prohibiting cops from doing so. *Boos from crowd*

Super packed meeting in Austin to hear about Austin PD relationship with ICE. This is just like the front portion of the school cafeteria

YouTube video by James Talarico Billionaires

Talarico's Super Bowl ad is an ad showing people alone on their phones/tablets watching footage from the same staged speech used in a prior ad.

I make no comment on the effectiveness, only on what it implies about the state of our one precious lives on this planet www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_1...

Irving Green Advisory Board member resigns after links to white nationalist group revealed Joshua James Berkau resigned days after his links to white nationalist group Patriot Front surfaced.

"A member of Irving’s environmental Green Advisory Board resigned in the days after being identified by the Texas Observer as linked with the white nationalist group Patriot Front" www.keranews.org/government/2...

SEIU Texas endorses Crockett -- AFL-CIO did not endorse so affiliates may endorse as they like:

TEA warns of state takeovers for “encouraging” student protests The state education agency issued guidance to districts after Gov. Greg Abbott directed its commissioner to investigate the student protests of killings by federal agents.

The kind of shit you don't have to have read a single Orwell book to call Orwellian.

"Today, in classrooms across Texas, tomorrow’s leaders are learning the foundational, critical thinking skills," such as love for our masked federal agents www.texastribune.org/2026/02/03/t...

The Express-News one was a surprise to me since ed boards tend to like conventional wisdom and conventional wisdom favors Talarico -- unfortunately it was also very cursory

The bigger Hearst paper uses significantly more words in endorsement of Talarico.

In summary, "Nobody really knows what electability looks like in Texas;" however, Democrats need to stop counting on an "unseen army of low-propensity voters." www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/endo...

A Reporter's Religious Quest in Houston Suburbia At a Hindu temple hidden in Pearland, I found lessons about community, womanhood, and alienation.

New today: "I regarded Pearland as a bleak place to endure as part of my sacrificial motherhood. So I was surprised to find a temple here where women were both being celebrated and celebrating with so much joy."

In Texas Cities, Let a Hundred Mamdanis Bloom Our state has long-term lessons to learn from the New York socialist’s rise.

Featured story: The last time Democrats won statewide office in Texas was 1994. That year coincides closely with an important index of organizational power: peak union density in the state.