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Jul 17, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande and not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a DPS trooper. trib.al/DU36yCR The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Oct 22, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
THREAD: As former President Donald Trump prepares to host a rally near Corpus Christi, Texas this weekend, the city of El Paso is still waiting for him to pay back the more than $500,000 he owes for hosting his 2019 rally there. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Trump scheduled a large political rally in El Paso in 2019 to coincide with an event hosted by then-presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke shortly after the Walmart mass shooting that left 22 dead in the city. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Then-President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in El Paso
Oct 21, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
THREAD: Beto O’Rourke is seeking to become the first Democratic governor in Texas in nearly 30 years. But to win he'll have to overcome the wreckage of his failed bid for the White House. houstonchronicle.com/politics/elect… Garnering national attention for his 2018 U.S. Senate run, O’Rourke has grown a record-shattering fundraising machine that makes him the most dangerous Democratic challenger Gov. Greg Abbott has faced in nearly three years of politics. houstonchronicle.com/politics/elect…
Oct 21, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
🧵 Texas Republicans at the top of the ticket have widened their leads over Democratic challengers into the double digits, according to a new poll released just days before early voting begins in the midterms.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/elect… A University of Texas at Austin/Texas Politics Project survey released Friday found Gov. Greg Abbott is leading Beto O'Rourke by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 54-43.
Oct 20, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵Voters of color are 50 percent more likely than white voters to have mail ballots rejected under a new Texas law that restricts voting by mail, according to a new study detailing "massive disenfranchisement" under the law. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… The law — passed by Texas Republicans in 2021 in the name of election integrity — requires absentee voters to include either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the ballot. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Oct 20, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
🧵The families of two victims who attended Travis Scott’s Astroworld in 2021 have reached settlements with the Houston rapper, Live Nation and others.
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… Image The family of Axel Acosta, a 21-year-old who died during the Astroworld Festival in 2021, reached a settlement against Houston rapper Travis Scott, Live Nation and others in connection with the tragedy that resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries at NRG Park. Image
Oct 18, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵Gov. Greg Abbott is out with new attack ads that warn that electing Beto O’Rourke will lead to more crime in the streets.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/elect… Image In a new ad released Tuesday morning, Abbott has the mother of a murdered teenager warning voters against supporting O’Rourke because he backs bail reforms that she says are similar to what Harris County had put into place, leading to her son’s killer being released on bond.
Oct 17, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
🧵 Texas public school systems are set to distribute DNA and fingerprint identification kits for K-8 students to parents who wish to participate.
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… Image The state Legislature passed a law in spring 2021 requiring the Texas Education Agency to give inkless in-home fingerprint and DNA identification cards to each public school system in Texas.
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…
Oct 12, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
🧵 Is Beto O'Rourke's 'Abbott tax' claim real? Is Texas' power grid better than California's? Governor's race fact check
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Image Throughout his campaign for governor, Democrat Beto O'Rourke has emphasized again and again the fallout from last year's winter blackouts, pinning the failure of the grid and its vast financial toll on his opponent, Gov. Greg Abbott.

houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Oct 11, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
🧵 No Democrat has ever raised more money to run for governor in Texas than Beto O’Rourke.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… The El Paso Democrat announced on Tuesday that he raised another $25.2 million since July and now has raised just over $66 million for his campaign against Republican Greg Abbott.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Oct 8, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read
THREAD: While ripping up the floorboards of an old Texas school building to create a new community center, contractors uncovered a purse filled with memories and mementos dating back to 1959. 👜
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… “There was a mini calendar and the dates and entries stopped in April 1959 so we assume it was lost in April 1959,” said Erika Fernandez, a communications specialist with Clear Creek ISD said.
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…
Oct 7, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read
🧵 It came down to a few strands of hair on a hairbrush sitting in an evidence room for almost 40 years.
houstonchronicle.com/news/investiga… Image Texas deputies had found her body — little more than a skeleton — in a pasture near Houston. She’d had a pair of red denim shorts, an “Ocean Pacific” T-shirt, a yellow cigarette lighter, two athletic bags.
houstonchronicle.com/news/investiga… Image
Oct 6, 2022 10 tweets 4 min read
🧵 An attorney representing a Texas county participating in Gov. Greg Abbott’s border crackdown called it “a waste of time and money” in court Wednesday, adding he sees “very little logic” in pursuing charges against migrants after they’re deported. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… The comments from David Schulman, an attorney contracted by Kinney County, came during a hearing before Texas’ Fourth Court of Appeals, which is weighing whether defendants can be prosecuted after federal authorities have removed them from the country. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Oct 5, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read
Opinion: Texas is a low-tax state only if you make a lot of money. Otherwise you’re better off in California, writes @cltomlinson. houstonchronicle.com/business/colum… Image "The biggest lie Texas politicians have ever told — and both parties have perpetuated it — is the lack of an income tax is an absence of taxation," Tomlinson writes. "That goes for Gov. Greg Abbott and his opponent, Beto O'Rourke, too." houstonchronicle.com/business/colum…
Sep 22, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵 Gov. Greg Abbott's lead is widening over Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, according to a Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely voters released Thursday.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Image The poll also indicated that Texas voters may consider immigration a more important issue than abortion. About 31 percent of respondents said immigration was their top concern ahead of the midterms, while 22 percent said the same for abortion. Image
Sep 21, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵Migrants claiming Texas discriminates against men score win, threatening Abbott's Operation Lone Star
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Image A state district judge has dismissed the criminal cases against six migrants arrested in Zapata County under Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Sep 16, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵A Black family in the Houston area alleges in a new federal lawsuit filed Friday that a real estate agent refused to sell a unit to them because of their race. chrn.cl/3QKuuDH James Ra-Amari, a real estate investor, had intended to buy three units — two to rent and one to occupy. He said his inquiry was repeatedly denied, and at first he didn’t understand what had happened. chrn.cl/3QKuuDH
Sep 16, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
🧵Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had minimal coordination with Gov. Greg Abbott before deciding to round up Venezuelan migrants in San Antonio to fly to Florida so he could then send them to Martha’s Vineyard at the expense of Florida taxpayers.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… The staff of the two Republican governors had talked generally about the busing strategy Abbott started last spring, but DeSantis did not have any direct planning with Abbott’s office on Wednesday.
Sep 16, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
🧵 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's migrant busing strategy drew a sharp rebuke from President Joe Biden, who blasted the practice of shipping asylum seekers off to Democratic-led cities as “reckless” and “un-American.”
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Image “Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” the president said in a speech at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala on Thursday night. “What they're doing is simply wrong. It's un-American. It's reckless.”
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
Sep 15, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
THREAD: Gov. Greg Abbott had over 100 migrants who crossed the Texas border bused to D.C. near Vice President Kamala Harris’ house Thursday.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… “The Biden-Harris Administration continues ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years,” Abbott said in an announcement.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Migrants from Venezuela, wh...
Sep 10, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
THREAD: In Texas, it’s not just women who are fired up about access to abortion and registering to vote in large numbers following this summer's historic Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… A new analysis from political data and polling firm TargetSmart found that Texas’ new voter registrants are evenly split between men and women, and they are younger and more Democratic than before the June ruling. houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…