Opinion

TEXAS IS NOT BLUE, but after this latest election, its Democrats are. The party’s latest effort to turn Texas its way fell short on Tuesday.

AS A LIFELONG lover/friend/relative of conservative Republicans, I’m at a loss about how to communicate with them this week. Do I smile, nod and commiserate about the crazy weather? Should I surreptitiously slip them contact info for the best mental health professionals I can find? Begin stock-piling baked goods for carb-numbing? I dunno…it’s just exhausting.

Amazon goes big in Texas Amazon delivered good economic news, announcing plans for a 700,000-square-foot distribution center and warehouse in Waco. Gov.

THE PANDEMIC HAS introduced several unusual challenges—from remote learning and NBA “bubbles” to virtual graduations and socially-distanced Real Housewives reunions. More importantly, COVID-19 has highlighted our vulnerabilities as a nation and the many things we take for granted.

As an Air Force veteran, a physician, a Latina, a Texan, and a mother, I have shaped my life around overcoming obstacles and inequities wherever I saw or felt them: in education; in the military; in entrepreneurship; and, over the last 10 years, in access to healthcare.

HOW HARD IS IT TO REGISTER to vote and then to vote in Texas? It’s harder than in 49 other states, according to a “costof-voting index” compiled by political scientists at Northern Illinois University, Jacksonville University, and Wuhan University in China.

First time I saw Rankin Proffitt was in a video, made at the Shawnee Horse Sale a couple of weeks ago. The 10-year-old cowboy from Canadian is alone in the sales arena, showing a beautiful sorrel pony with a bald face and four white socks. He is wearing jeans, a white long-sleeve shirt, a straw hat…dressed for the show ring.

WITH TEXANS ALREADY CASTING absentee ballots, Gov. Greg Abbott is making it more difficult to vote by closing ballot drop-off locations. His adversaries are calling that vote suppression—and they’re right.

CONFUSED ABOUT VOTING? Voting clerks in parts of Texas are confused, too. All the political chatter about problems with the U.S. Postal Service and voting by mail has some election officials telling their voters to cast absentee ballots by bringing them to the main office instead of dropping them in the mail. They’re also telling voters to bring approved voter identification if they vote that way—just as if they were voting in person—and not to bring anyone else’s ballot, sealed or not.

AS OF THURSDAY, COVID-19 had killed 14,590 Texans. That’s the official number.