Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune

By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune

Texas hasn’t outlawed abortion for everyone — just for those who can’t afford to travel to other states and countries where the decision about whether to have a child is left to the person who’s pregnant.
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By Ross Ramsey, The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott wants to bus undocumented immigrants to Washington, D.C., to display his opposition to the Biden administration’s immigration policies, to win some attention in an election year and to turn conversation away from the thin results of the state’s expensive border security efforts....

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If you say — or write — that it’s harder to vote in Texas today than it was a year ago, or four years ago, someone will tell you how easy it is and how full of beans you are....

That health care is legal under Texas law, but this is election season. Cynics who think politicians will say anything to get reelected have a new, sparkling piece of evidence.

Other people caught doing what the governor and attorney general are doing — Texas public school students, for instance — risk breaking the law. Check out the definition of illegal bullying in the Texas Education Code: “Bullying means a single significant act or a pattern of acts by one or more students directed at another student that exploits an imbalance of power and involves engaging in written or verbal expression, expression through electronic means, or physical conduct …”

Substitute “elected officials” for the first instance of “students,” and it’s evident what’s going on here. There’s more to that definition, which specifies bullying that “has the effect or will have the effect of physically harming a student, damaging a student’s property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm to the student’s person or of damage to the student’s property; is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive enough that the action or threat creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for a student …”...

The late Fred Rogers told a story to help kids through terrible times. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Mr. Rogers said, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You can always find people who are helping.’”

That’s not a bad test for voters considering political candidates. Who’s trying to shake you up? Who’s trying to work out the problems we face? Are they telling you what to fear — or how they’re going to fix it? Are they complaining about their opponents — or saying how they’d go to work?

During political seasons like the one we’re in, there’s more fake drama about current events than real proposals to make things better. Challengers are often facing incumbents, and that means they have to try to discredit the government in order to persuade voters to call for a change. Incumbents are busy telling us the newbies would mess everything up....