Texas unemployment rate increases again The Texas unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent in August, its highest rate since June of 1987. That’s an increase from 8.4 percent in July. Those numbers come from the U.S. Department of Labor. The numbers were confirmed by the Texas Workforce Commission, which says the state lost 1,300 jobs in August. Texas gained 8,100 private-sector jobs, but those jobs were wiped out by job losses in the public sector. For the year, Texas has added 272,000 jobs ...

Environment Texas - Exciting news for the Christmas Mountains I have exciting news for you. And, since you've supported Environment Texas' work to protect the Christmas Mountains, I wanted to tell you first. Just this morning, the state announced intentions to transfer the Christmas Mountains to the Texas State University system. This would make the land, in Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson's words, an "outdoor classroom, open to all — including hunters — with conservation of the land guar...

Rick Perry Supplemented Wealth With Profitable Deals Involving Political Friends & Their Businesses (snip) Perry is worth is at least $1.1 million. His chief Republican rival, businessman Mitt Romney, is worth more than $190 million. Perry became a millionaire through a practice common to many other politicians over the years: taking part in profitable deals involving political friends and their businesses. He made more than $800,000 in 2007 reselling a resort development plot he had gotten...

The frontrunner has no clothes The applause identified Rick Perry as the crowd favorite when he took the stage in Tampa for Monday night’s Tea Party debate, greeting his lesser rivals as “fellas.” But two hours later, those fellas – and a gal from Minnesota – had made some serious progress toward exposing the broad-shouldered Texas governor as an empty suit. Sometimes they challenged Perry from the left (on Social Security and Medicare) and sometimes from the right (on immigration, taxes and...

Perry Skips Wildfire Press Conference to Hang in Rental Mansion Over the weekend on Saturday afternoon, Rick Perry was too busy chillaxin' in his $9,000-a-month rental mansion to show up at a press conference about housing vouchers for people who lost their homes. From KUT Austin: Governor Rick Perry missed a news conference he scheduled with reporters at 4 p.m. in Bastrop . Perry's office distributed an email to media last night saying he "will give remarks and be joined by emergency managem...

Barbara Jordan stamp to be issued In 1972, Barbara Jordan became the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South. This week, 15 years after her death, she will become the first African-American congresswoman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp. Jordan, who delivered an acclaimed keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention and also made a keynote address to the convention in 1992, will be the 34th person honored as part of the Postal Service’s annual Black Heri...

Must-Reads: The Late, Great Molly Ivins on Rick Perry "Shrub Flubs His Dub"—The Nation, June 18, 2001 In this Nation article from the advent of the Bush years, Molly Ivins makes one of her first observations of just how damn good Rick Perry's hairdo is: Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames—it's not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House c...

Guest Column: Why Rick Perry is Bad for Hispanics by Rafael Anchia Earlier this summer, Gov. Rick Perry walked confidently into a packed hotel ballroom in San Antonio to address the Annual Conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a bipartisan organization representing almost 6,000 Hispanic officeholders at every level of government in the U.S. As the Immediate Past Chair of NALEO, I had a front row seat and closely observed Perry, who was in a ...

Bill Clinton Scoffs At Rick Perry’s Platform: "I Mean, This Is Crazy" (in video) I got tickled by watching Governor Perry announce for governor, for president," Clinton said -- perhaps stumbling a bit in the wind-up of a joke. "He's a good looking rascal." The former president elaborated: "And he's saying 'Oh, I'm going to Washington to make sure that the federal government stays as far away from you as possible -- while I ride on Air Force One and that Marine One helicopter and go to Camp D...

It's official, if familiar: Perry's in The news broke Thursday afternoon, though it might have had a familiar ring to it. Gov. Rick Perry, The Associated Press reported in an afternoon news alert, is indeed running for president, as confirmed by Perry spokesman Mark Miner. Now, there's nobody left who believes Perry is not running for president. Just Monday, every news outlet, from the mainstream media to specialty blogs, reported that Perry will use Saturday's speech in South Carolina to e...

ERCOT Rolling Out First Step of Emergency Procedures As scorching temperatures continued and Texas electricity use reached another all-time high, the state grid operator initiated the first step of emergency procedures today, seeking power from other grids, including Mexico. About 20 power generation units, accounting for around 3,000 megawatts of capacity, were unavailable today during unplanned outages, adding to the strain on the grid. Today's temperatures soared well past 100 degrees, and...

Can Perry’s prayer event meet expectations? What if you threw a prayer rally and nobody came? That won’t be the case Saturday at Gov. Rick Perry’s Response event at Reliant Stadium. So far, about 8,000 people have registered. But the stadium holds 70,000, and it appears Perry will fall far short of his stated hope of filling the place? Did Perry and organizers of the event set expectations that were too high? Why did his team not see that governors would be unlikely to attend before he publi...

Debris From Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster Found in Texas A piece of debris from NASA's space shuttle Columbia has been discovered in Texas, eight years after the 2003 disaster that destroyed the spacecraft and killed its seven-astronaut crew during re-entry, NASA officials confirmed today (Aug. 2). The debris was discovered last week in eastern Texas. It is a round aluminum power reactant storage and distribution tank from Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas as it re-entered Earth's a...

Uncertainty lingers for Texas, other states with federal deficit deal Texas traded one source of uncertainty for another as Congress took steps to cement a deal to raise the federal debt limit Monday. (snip) The unknown now is how the anticipated $2.1 trillion in federal budget cuts during the next 10 years could trickle down to them. (snip) Federal dollars account for $54 billion — or about one-third — of Texas' upcoming two-year budget. Much of that money helps pay for Medicaid, a joint s...

Outdoor burn bans in record 248 Texas counties COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS — The Texas Forest Service says a record 248 counties have outdoor burn bans as the drought continues during oppressive summer heat. The agency reported Monday that the only Texas counties lacking bans on outdoor burning are Brooks, Chambers, Jefferson, Orange, Willacy and Zapata counties. The whole state is a tinder box waiting to catch fire. :scared:

The skeletons in Rick Perry's closet (snip) That fact was highlighted last Thursday, when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took a very pointed shot at Perry. "For all his new found commitment to hyper-conservatism," said the former GOP presidential candidate, "he'll get to explain why he supported pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage Rudy Guiliani last time." Perry's support for Giuliani - whose moderation on social issues alienated social conservatives and contributed to his dramatic fl...

Rick Perry Asked Why More Kids Are Getting Pregnant in Texas Texas Governor Rick Perry is toying with a run for president. Perry is a skilled politician and has never lost an election, but he has taken an increasingly antiscience turn in his approach to governing. On global warming he now says that the leading source of "supposedly deadly carbon dioxide" is the mouth of Al Gore. On education he has appointed creationists to lead the Texas State Board of Education. And on the issue of sex ed in...

75% of Texas is now at worst drought level Three-fourths of Texas is now baking in exceptional drought, the worst level, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday. Three months ago, only 15 percent of the state was experiencing exceptional drought. One year ago, nearly 83 percent of the state was drought-free. October through June was the state's driest nine-month period on record, though the drought is still ranked No. 3 in state history, said state climatologist John Nielsen-...

God Urges Rick Perry Not To Run For President AUSTIN, TX—Describing Texas Gov. Rick Perry as grossly unqualified for the position, God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, urged Perry not to run for president of the United States Wednesday. “I prayed last night and asked the Lord to support my candidacy, and He said no,” Perry told reporters outside the Texas Capitol, explaining that God had cited the governor’s rejection of federal stimulus funds to expand state jobless benefits, his irres...

ACLU seeks records on Perry prayer event The American Civil Liberties Union filed open-records requests Wednesday to determine how much public money will be spent on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's prayer event at Reliant Stadium on Aug. 6. Dubbed "The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis," and funded by the Mississippi-based American Family Association and other fundamentalist Christian organizations, the all-day event is expected to attract several thousand people. The ACLU of Texas h...

The Final Frontier for Space City? Houston’s official nickname since 1967: Space City. It’s NBA team: the Rockets. Its MLB franchise is the Astros, and they played in the Astrodome. It’s no wonder that the city that prides itself as the premier intellectual base of America’s manned space program is in a bit of a funk as space shuttle Atlantis makes its final landing today. Aerospace is not Houston’s largest industry — it comes in at number four. So NASA jobs are just part of what the city is...

Just for fun. These videos are really neat. Films can be voted on through Aug. 15. Where I'm From Short Film Contest About the Contest In Texas, cities and towns are more than just places on a map. They’re part of who we are and how we define ourselves. Over the years, Texas Monthly has written about every corner of the state, and in two special Where I’m From issues, in 2005 and 2010, the magazine’s writers and contributors shared their personal stories of growing up here. This year, for t...

Democrats accuse Rep. Smith of hypocrisy WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday denounced an immigration bill authored by Rep. Lamar Smith as “petty partisan politics” and accused the San Antonio Republican of being a hypocrite for introducing the measure to spur deportations. Smith filed the “Hinder the Administration's Legalization Temptation” Act, or HALT, after the White House announced it would prioritize deportations to remove violent criminals and terrorists. “The Obama administrati...

If Texas Gov. Rick Perry runs for president, he likely will center his campaign on the supposedly booming Texas economy. The governor has no shortage of positive economic data to boast about. But the state’s business-friendly environment comes at a cost: low-wage jobs, underfinanced schools and tattered social services. Texas now leads the nation in minimum-wage workers. That has only worsened our income inequality. The Texas economy has performed well compared with the rest of the country. T...

Who Gave Rick Perry $102 Million? See Perry's Instant Bundling Network! As speculation on a Rick Perry presidential bid grows TPJ is posting a complete list of his campaign contributors since becoming Governor of Texas.* Perry raised a total of $102,834,081 between Jan. 2001 and Dec. 2010. Of his $102 million, $51 million was provided by 204 individuals and pacs that have each contributed $100,000 or more. Download a file (csv format, 12mb) of Perry's 86,783 itemized contributions. View a...

Rick Perry's Army of God On September 28, 2009, at 1:40 p.m., God’s messengers visited Rick Perry. On this day, the Lord’s messengers arrived in the form of two Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Perry in the governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long both oversee small congregations, but they are more than just pastors. They consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the same gifts as Old Testament ...

EPA: Texas plants will get new air permits HOUSTON — Nearly 140 Texas plants, including some of the nation's largest refineries, have reached a deal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to receive new permits even though a long-standing battle between the Lone Star State and the federal agency is far from over. The EPA's announcement Tuesday that it reached a deal for all 136 companies to apply for new permits came more quickly than initially expected when the agency ruled last year ...

Ron Paul won't seek congressional term in 2012 LAKE JACKSON — After serving almost 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Ron Paul told The Facts this morning he will not be seeking another term for the District 14 seat. Paul, 75, will instead focus on his quest for the presidency in 2012. “I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,” Paul said. “It’s about that time when I should change tactics.” His announcement will give enough time for anyone with aspirat...

You Knew It Was Coming, But Glenn Beck Makes It Official: "I'm Moving to Dallas, Texas." We've known for a couple of weeks that Glenn Beck was eying a Westlake manse, but this morning on his radio show he made it official. Let's go to the "fusion of entertainment and enlightenment" hisself for the official what-for: "I'm moving to Dallas, Texas, and my family is there now, and I will be there shortly. We're keeping our business, Mercury, in New York. Nobody is surprised by this, I'm sure. W...

Texas: Jury Rejects Assertion of Rape Against Military Contractor in Iraq (snip) A former employee of the military contractor KBR Inc. who said she was drugged and raped while working in Iraq lost her lawsuit against KBR on Friday after a federal jury in Houston concluded that the sex was consensual. The former employee, Jamie Leigh Jones, 26, said she was raped in 2005 while working at Camp Hope, Baghdad. She sued KBR, its former parent Halliburton Co. and a former KBR firefighter, Charles Bo...