"I am a Marxist and Socialist and/or Communist and a Trotskyist etc and a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO). I'll cop to any of those..." Read More »

By: Erin Dyer Houston-born instrumental Jazz band, Free Radicals, has released their newest CD: “The Freedom Fence.” Since the band’s founding in 1996 by drummer and producer, Nick Cooper, the Free Rads’ discography includes The Rising Tide Sinks All (1998), Our Lady of Eternal Sunny Delights (2000), Aerial Bombardment (2004), and most recently, The Freedom Fence (2012). Maybe I’m biased because I have enjoyed listening to this awesome local band for years (I’m clearly already a Free Rads fan), but The Freedom Fence kicks ass. Each track, of 23 total, melts into each other like new lovers on ecstasy. The ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Imagine this scenario, if you can: it’s 10:30 at night and you’re walking to a store for whatever reason. A cop pulls up and flashes his lights. Like a good boy or girl you stop and 5-0 rolls on up and demands your name. Now, since you weren’t doing anything but minding your own business you don’t particularly feel the need to tell the po-po who you are; so you give the cop some variation of “get lost.”  Next thing you know you are arrested, charged with a Class C misdemeanor for failing to identify yourself and then, because of ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman I wish I could say we were making this up, I really do. I wish that this was an unfunny joke we thought up one night after a few too many Lone Stars, but its not. State Representative Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) who made her name in the Free Press for her vow to introduce a copycat to Arizona’s “Papers, please” law has decided to double down on the crazy. A bill she proposed on March 2, Texas Indepedence Day, would make the penalty for knowingly hiring an undocumented immigrant a State Jail Felony. The proposed for hiring ... Read More »

By “Alan Smithee” It’s been a month since Arizona passed their infamous anti-immigrant bill and almost as soon as it was passed rightwing copycats decided to jump on the band wagon. Two Texas State Representatives, Debbie Riddel (R-Tomball) and Leo Berman (R-Tyler), have each vowed to introduce bills similar to Arizona’s. Riddel and Berman have been telling everyone who will listen, including KPFT’s Partisan Gridlock, that the bill they want to introduce will be exactly the same bill, except of course there won’t be any racial profiling. Berman told Austin TV station KVUE that “It will be the same bill except that we ... Read More »