COVID-19 Exposes Republican Failure to Deal with Health Care Crisis in Texas

One of the most damaging ways conservative state leaders left Texas unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic is the state’s sky-high number of people without health insurance. And that’s getting worse: many Texans who are losing their jobs are joining the already massive ranks of the uninsured. This is a public health catastrophe — one compounded […]

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Politics, Race and Republican Leaders’ Sorry Response to COVID-19 in Texas

While many local leaders in the state’s largest cities and counties acted swiftly to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Texas early on, the reactions of state Republican leaders to the crisis was much slower. Then after belatedly issuing a shelter-at-home order and closing nonessential businesses, Gov. Abbott and other Republican leaders have apparently decided […]

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No, Protesting Public Health Measures Doesn’t Make You Like MLK or Gandhi

As most Texans try to protect their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become increasingly clear that the state’s Republican leaders are putting politics ahead of public health. Consider, for example, state Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, comparing a Dallas salon owner who kept her shop open in defiance of public health orders to Martin Luther […]

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Happy Birthday: TFN Marks 25 years as a Progressive Champion in Texas

Cecile Richards wanted to see for herself how much the religious right was expanding its influence in the halls of Texas government. So in January 1995, Cecile attended her first State Board of Education meeting, watching how religious-righters on the board were hijacking textbook adoptions to promote their political agenda. “It’s worse than I imagined,” […]

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