Last week, the Trib presented the Texas premiere of My Trip to Al-Qaeda, a new documentary that aired on HBO tonight. After the screening, I interviewed the filmmakers, director Alex Gibney and author and journalist (and Austinite) Lawrence Wright. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading. Full Story
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And now for something completely different: Rick Perry and Bill White are virtually tied in the race for governor, according to a poll done for Texas Watch by Republican pollster Hill Research Consultants. Full Story
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Starting today, you may a little less lonely while kvetching about politics. Full Story
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Ask anybody — from the president of the United States to your high school guidance counselor — and you'll probably hear the same, seemingly obvious thing: Higher education is the key to financial advancement. But is everybody going to college a realistic goal? And would the world really be better if we achieved it? Mose Buchele of KUT News reports. Full Story
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The start of the 2010 election sprint finds Texas Republicans feverish: Even the sober ones think they could snatch up to 10 more state House seats. Democrats maintain they can still wrest majority control away from the GOP. Full Story
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Already the state's single largest Democratic donor this campaign cycle, the Houston attorney has pledged to contribute at least $3 million to the party and its causes this year and has no intention of turning off the faucet. The man behind the Back to Basics PAC's "coward" ad sat down with the Tribune last week to talk about why he feels the need to give, the influence of money in Texas politics, how "trial lawyer" became a perjorative and what he really thinks of the Democrats' chances this fall. Full Story
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Rick Perry asserts the Texas economy is one of the strongest in the nation. Bill White eagerly points out what he says are the problems the governor conveniently overlooks. Who's right? Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune looks at how we stack up compared to other states — and our own history. Full Story
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Not to be-Labor the point, but on this Day when we pause to celebrate the men and women of Texas (and elsewhere) who work for a living, we thought we'd show off the sweat and toil of our crack interviewers. Nearly every Trib reporter has sat down with a few of the most interesting and newsworthy Texans over the last few months: current and former elected officials, authors and activists, operatives and candidates, and policy wonks of all types and stripes. Thus far we've conducted 37 so-called "TT Interviews" (a respectful riff on the Rolling Stone Interviews that many of us grew up reading) and presented them as audio, video, a transcript or some combination of the above. This non-narrative form is an effective and compelling way to tell the unfiltered stories of Texas politics, public policy and government; enjoy. And happy holiday. Full Story
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The Labor Day start of the 2010 election sprint finds Texas Republicans feverish: Even some of the sober ones think they could land eight or nine or ten sets in the state House this year. Democrats aren't giving up, by any means — their optimists still think they can win the House away from the GOP. But a strain of the same virus that infected donkeys two years ago has now infected elephants. Then, Democrats were Wild About Obama and it drove their fall efforts and helped boost turnout in November. This year, it's the Republican version of Wild About Obama —and it apparently affects their enthusiasm the same way. With about two months left before Election Day, they're exuberant. Full Story
I hit the campaign trail with Rick Perry, E. Smith starts off the fall TribLive series by interviewing Attorney General Greg Abbott, Stiles on the most congested roads in Texas, Ramshaw's interview with former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, Grissom on the perils of talking too much if you're the head of the state's jail standards board, M. Smith on Congressman Chet Edwards' fight for political survival in a Republican year, Philpott on counties worried the state's budget woes will trickle down, Hamilton on whether Texas should be in the movie-vetting business, Aguilar on a Mexican journalist seeking asylum from his country's drug violence, Galbraith on green energy and Texas college football, and excerpts from former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby's new book, How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics: The best of our best from August 30 to September 3, 2010. Full Story
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Forecasters say incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry has an 83.5 percent chance of a defeating Democratic challenger Bill White in November. Full Story
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After a 2006 bus accident in Beaumont that killed two students and injured several more, parents and legislators successfully demanded the state finance seat belts in school buses. Today, four years later, the Legislative Budget Board finally gave approval for a grant program — but the rules the board set likely will exclude the Beaumont area from getting the money, even though the grassroots movement started there. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry's campaign hit the trail with his challenger, Bill White, and captured what it considers to be humorous moments for a new web video posted today. Full Story
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Adding to the still-escalating drama, an ultimatum was issued in the governor's race Thursday. Full Story
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Robert Rodriguez's latest movie, arriving in theaters today, is reawakening the controversy over a content provision in the state's film industry incentives program. Supporters say the intent is simply to safeguard the image of Texas. Critics charge lawmakers with taking a machete to free speech. Full Story
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As U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, goes, so go the Democrats? In a hyper-partisan year, with control of the U.S. House up for grabs, all eyes are on Congressional District 17, the most Republican district in America held by a Democrat. Pundits think Edwards may finally get beat: Were he to survive, a D.C. analyst says, it would be "one of the greatest Houdini acts ever seen in Texas politics." But the 10-term incumbent has seen awful political environments before. “The Washington Generals have a better record against Harlem Globetrotters than the [National Republican Congressional Committee] does in predicting my defeat," he says. Full Story
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"I always wanted to run for office," Bill Hobby writes. "And I grew up in a family that had been part of state government for a couple of generations." An excerpt from the forthcoming How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics. Full Story
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Eighteen Democrats in the Texas House have asked President Obama to send U.S. surveillance aircraft from Iraq to Texas to help guard the state's border with Mexico. Full Story
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