Fort Worth Weekly
Photo by Ozzie Garza.
What kind of shithole do you live in when the politicians in charge want to make it harder to vote?
Not a trick question. I’ll save you the brain power and time. Texas. You live in Texas. Or! Or it could be any one of the other 45 states whose Republican-controlled legislatures are now working overtime to pass voter-suppression laws because voting is apparently so unnatural and gross.
Instead of coming up with better ideas, or even just ideas, Republicans instead are attempting to hide the ballot box, presumably behind a stack of MyPillows and cans of Goya beans, which is what we should expect from the people who gerrymandered their way into the majority on the state level starting in 2010. No grift is too shameless for them. The truth is that any “political party” whose only way to save itself and its retrograde ideas from drowning in a wave of Black, brown, and rainbow colors is through fascism is not a political party.
Though never a big fan of big-box retailers, I’m glad they’re stepping up now. Walmart, Target, CVS, and Kroger are just some of the major stores requiring masks despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to scrub them. Hundreds of independent and small bars and restaurants are following the big boys’ lead. Already, lots of
Reports of exposure-related deaths are coming in from across the state, and the victims range from children to the elderly. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services (DHS) said that a statewide survey of deaths caused by the recent winter storm and subsequent blackout is underway but could take
Fort Worth Weekly
Lalaland.
In 2017, according to the nonpartisan law and policy institute
The Brennan Center, the FBI “reported that white supremacists posed a ‘persistent threat of lethal violence’ that has produced more fatalities than any other category of domestic terrorists since 2000. Alarmingly, internal FBI policy documents have also warned agents assigned to domestic terrorism cases that the white supremacist and anti-government militia groups they investigate often have ‘active links’ to law enforcement officials.”
Not long after Wednesday’s attempted coup in our nation’s capital, the
Fort Worth Police Officers’ Association joined
Parler, a social media platform preferred by
Fort Worth Weekly
iStock.com
Every morning, first thing, I take the dog for a walk. In fall, we wade through dead leaves, a downside of living in the older tree-lined hood of
Riverside. When the wind is blowing, it’s truly a sight to behold. Leaves tumble in a blizzard of orange, red, and yellow. On my slate-gray street, dead leaves come back to life, and leap like a corps de ballet spin, double, even triple pliés, pirouetting on one stem.
One morning, after watching this wind-powered dance recital, I had a hunch and turned down a street. The dog was agreeable, as she always is to anything that lengthens our walks. I had something more in mind, and, sure enough, one of my Trumpster neighbors had finally