Hill Country News

Analysis: Population changes the recipe for Texas’ political soup

Political people often compare Texas election maps to a state-shaped bowl of tomato soup with blueberries sprinkled in it. Most of the state in those post-election illustrations is Republican red, … more

By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune | 9/16/21

Roseland Community Hospital intensive care unit nurse Subu Kirugulige tends to a COVID-19 patient on April 15, 2020, in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Commentary: Long COVID-19 may have consequences for decades. We need to study it

William Faulkner once wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.” He meant that events from the past can still affect us now or in the future. He might have been … more

Cory Franklin and Robert A. Weinstein, Chicago Tribune (TNS) | 9/16/21

In 2019, U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., became one of two Muslim American women serving in Congress. (Glenn Stubbe/Star Tribune/TNS)

Commentary: Since 9/11, US Muslims have gone from being threatened and attacked to politically involved

If you are victimized by a horrific event, you have a choice. You can go down a rabbit hole of rage and despair and end up further hurting yourself and maybe others. Or you can learn to heal and … more

Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register (TNS) | 9/15/21

Relatives and neighbors of the Ahmadi family gathered around the incinerated husk of a vehicle that the family says was hit by a U.S. drone strike, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Commentary: A tragic, senseless drone killing should mark the end of America’s 9/11 era

President Joe Biden signaled to America and the world that he’d be a different kind of commander in chief when he moved this summer to finally end the nearly 20-year “forever war” … more

Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) | 9/14/21

People leave to board a Pakistan International Airlines plane, the first international commercial flight to land since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, on August 15, at the airport in Kabul on Monday, September 13, 2021. (Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

Commentary: Lessons from Afghanistan for a high school history class

America’s schoolchildren don’t resist learning from history. Policymakers do. President Joe Biden ended a war in Afghanistan that his three predecessors pursued (and rued) for 20 years … more

Elizabeth Cobbs, Los Angeles Times (TNS) | 9/14/21

Pro-choice protesters march down Congress Avenue at a protest outside the Texas state capitol on May 29, 2021, in Austin. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images/TNS)

Commentary: Texas upends the Republican ‘leave us alone coalition’

Whether Texas’s anti-abortion law survives inevitable Supreme Court scrutiny, it may already have done irreparable damage to what was once known as the conservative movement — despite … more

Robert A. George, Bloomberg Opinion (TNS) | 9/13/21

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2021.

Analysis: Texas and the U.S., lawyered up and ready to go to court

Merrick Garland has an interesting job. He gets up, goes to the office, sues the state of Texas and then goes home. If that description of the U.S. attorney general’s job sounds familiar, … more

By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune | 9/13/21

In this handout provided by the U.S. Central Command, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport Aug. 30, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Donahue is the final American service member to depart the country after a 20-year war. (U.S. Central Command handout/Getty Images/TNS)

Analysis: In post-9/11 wars, pride came before the fall

In the 20 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America got its most important job right: Terrorists did not conduct another major attack on U.S. soil. But in the process … more

John M. Donnelly, CQ-Roll Call (TNS) | 9/10/21

What's an acceptable number?

There’s a question that rattles around my brain pan and the possible answers to it disappoint me. How many is too many? What’s an acceptable mortality rate? more

Richard Stone | Editor at Large | 9/8/21

Students at Claremont McKenna College in November 2015. The college is among those pledging to meet 100% of students’ demonstrated financial needs. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Commentary: Colleges need to engage in a financial aid ‘arms race.’ Here’s how that could happen

Two of the most persistent challenges facing the U.S. are a lack of meaningful jobs and growing income inequality. And these problems are only getting worse. Sure, there are jobs out there, at … more

Adam Weinberg, Los Angeles Times (TNS) | 9/3/21

Protesters outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2019.

Analysis: Texas legislators, with an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court, open a Pandora’s Box

The state of Texas has figured out, at least for now, how to do unconstitutional things in a way that doesn’t raise a majority of the eyebrows in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court turned … more

By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune | 9/2/21

The author, who is starting 10th grade, reflects on all she has missed during the pandemic. (Dreamstime/TNS)

Commentary: Here’s everything I missed as a COVID-era student. Will any of it ever come back?

I don’t know what most of the kids in my grade look like. I’ve never gone to a high school dance. My last “regular” school year began in the fall of 2018; that was seventh … more

Sidhi Dhanda, Los Angeles Times (TNS) | 9/1/21

The Las Vegas Strip and skyline, including various hotels and casinos, seen at night in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 18, 2016. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

Commentary: The ‘best places to live’ may not be the best places to live

Newly released 2020 Census data give us a better sense of where Americans think the best places to live are. Cities such as Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas continue to be popular, maintaining … more

Pete Saunders, Bloomberg Opinion (TNS) | 8/31/21

A voter filled out a ballot in Houston last November.

Analysis: The partisan debate over voting laws is a prologue to redistricting

The 2022 elections in Texas favor Republican candidates. They haven’t lost a statewide election for more than a quarter of a century, and they’ve been in the majority of the Texas House … more

By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune | 8/30/21

Dolphin Bay Elementary School kindergarten student Isabela Osorio gets an assist with her mask from her sister Valentina and Assistant Principal Janet Blano Soto, Wednesday, Aug. 16, in Miramar, Florida. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel/TNS)

Commentary: Mask arguments are an embarrassment with no end

Embarrassingly enough, in Allegheny County, home to some of the top universities and research hospitals in the world, about a third of the local school districts will not require masks in classrooms … more

Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS) | 8/30/21

Medical and hospital staff bring an injured man on a stretcher for treatment after two blasts outside the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

Commentary: The coming carnage between the Taliban and their jihadist rivals

The global jihadist community has had a mixed reaction to the Taliban’s remarkable sweep to power in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida — Osama bin Laden’s alma mater — was brimming … more

Ruth Pollard, Bloomberg Opinion (TNS) | 8/29/21

Commentary: Are you ready for some (gambling ads during) football?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the fledgling online gambling industry is poised to explode in popularity. This season, the NFL for the first time is permitting sports-gambling companies to … more

By Danny Tyree | 8/29/21

Let Them Breathe, an anti-mask group, protests at the Redondo Beach Unified School District building on July 27, 2021, in Redondo Beach, California. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Commentary: Masks at school? The kids are fine. It's the parents who are acting like jerks

During a recent trip taking my 6-year-old granddaughter to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, we and other visitors needed not just reservations but also face masks. All visitors except those … more

Karin Klein, Los Angeles Times (TNS) | 8/28/21

A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the August 26 twin suicide bombs, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops, at Kabul airport on August 27, 2021. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

Commentary: Disinformation sowed our failure in Afghanistan

America’s collapsed experiment in Afghanistan is not the first U.S. foreign policy failure built on a dishonest foundation. But if no one pays for peddling the lies that fueled it, it will not … more

Elizabeth Shackelford, Chicago Tribune (TNS) | 8/28/21

People disembark at the arrival of a chartered Air Belgium airplane carrying evacuated people from Afghanistan, at the military airport in Melsbroek, on August 24, 2021. The Belgian military evacuation mission 'Operation Red Kite,' flies defense cargo planes back and forth between the Pakistani capital Islamabad and Kabul in Afghanistan, to get Belgians and their families, but also Afghans such as interpreters, fixers and employees of human rights organizations, safely out of Afghanistan. (Eric Lalmand/Belga Mag/AFP/TNS

Commentary: A tale of 2 Afghan women, 1 who escaped and 1 who cannot

In the wake of the suicide bombs at Kabul airport by ISIS terrorists, I must pay tribute to those Americans who have been helping to rescue endangered Afghans. That includes the U.S. Marines who … more

Trudy Rubin, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) | 8/27/21

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