The violence in Mexico related to drug trafficking has continued over the past year, even though it hasn’t been in the headlines in the US in recent months. While in some cases there has been a lull in the violence, such as in Ciudad Mier, a small border town that was largely abandoned because of   more

Jay Root at the Texas Tribune came out with a huge scoop this past week regarding the personal finances of Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Apparently, Perry has technically retired as a Texas state employee and has started receiving pension payments. This has garnered quite a bit of criticism for various reasons, including the fact that Rick   more

The epic collapse of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Presidential campaign has been much-discussed with an emphasis on how this collapse affects his political future. This is to be expected, but a debacle like this will inevitably take down the fortunes of others.
I’m not talking about people like the staffers who left former House Speaker Newt   more

The New York Times published an editorial several days ago which discussed the need for reform of legal education in the United States.
This editorial took particular aim at the casebook method approach to legal education (sometimes also called the case method, as in the article) and suggested that the casebook method is outdated and in   more

Noah Kristula-Green and David Frum have written articles in the past week about the high cost of college tuition and its linkage to student loan debt. Noah aptly points out that one way affluent parents can pass along wealth to their children is by paying for college so their children won’t have a debt burden   more

Back in August, which was a couple of political lifetimes ago, I wrote a piece about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s strong fundraising base, specifically his unique ability to access a key part of the GOP’s fundraising base–wealthy Republicans in Texas.
Well, it looks like that money machine is sputtering like a confused politician at a presidential   more

The race for the GOP nomination for US Senator from Texas took an odd turn recently. Ted Cruz, the former Solicitor General of Texas, is running for this seat against various opponents, including Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, who is widely considered to be the frontrunner at this time.
At events in Tyler and Sugarland, Texas,   more

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted a piece about Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign here at FrumForum. This certainly hasn’t been because there’s been a lack of media attention on his campaign and needless to say, not all of this attention has been positive.  more

Several months ago, I wrote a piece here at FrumForum in which I stated that National Public Radio would be better off going without federal funding, because of the constant political headaches such funding entails.  I also suggested that changes in the media world, namely the rise of digital media, raises questions about old distribution   more

Texas Governor Rick Perry has had a tough week politically because of his weak performance at the last GOP presidential debate. He’s had to backtrack from comments he made and his standing in the polls has taken a hit. There’s been a lot of commentary regarding why Perry hasn’t done as well as he and   more

One of the big non-political stories of September 14th was that reality show wannabe-star Michaele Salahi apparently has decided to spend less time with her no-doubt-charming husband Tareq Salahi and is currently hanging out with Neal Schon, guitar player for Journey and all-around guitar hero. (No joke – he’s a guitar virtuoso, starting with his   more

FrumForum’s contributors have been asked to provide their thoughts about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s candidacy and what it might mean for the GOP. Regardless of one’s political stance, one can see a difference between Rick Perry and former President George W. Bush with respect to how they portray themselves as candidates.  more

I wrote a piece on August 19th about how Texas Governor Rick Perry may have changed his mind about certain issues over the years.  I now want to write about another Texan who appears to have changed his mind – Kinky Friedman.  more

Texas Governor Rick Perry has been under criticism for comments he made in his book Fed Up! and in an interview regarding Social Security and Medicare. In these comments, he stated that such programs were bad public policy and were possibly unconstitutional. His campaign has backpedaled a bit from these comments, with the Wall Street   more

Charles Dameron recently wrote an opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal in which he criticized some of the economic development initiatives that Governor Rick Perry has promoted in Texas.
This elicited a sharp response from Erick Erickson at Redstate.com, in which Erickson pointed out that Dameron used to be an intern in Senator Kay Bailey   more

Texas Governor Rick Perry may have just made a very shrewd move.  No, I’m not talking about declaring himself to be a candidate for president on the same day of the Iowa Straw Poll.  I’m talking about this:
John Sharp, the former Texas comptroller who was student body president at Texas A&M in the early 1970s,   more

FrumForum correspondents and readers are encouraged to blog about the books they are reading this August.  Please send any entries to editor[at]frumforum.com with the subject line, “Summer Reads.”
I haven’t read any new books this summer, but of the older books I read, Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers stands out as a great summer read.  Answered Prayers is   more

Zac Morgan wrote a great piece here at FrumForum where he described how Texas Governor Rick Perry is in a unique position to unite different factions of the GOP.  Morgan described Perry as the “Teastablishment” candidate.  While much of the attention has focused on Perry’s Tea Party and religious conservative strengths, I’d like to discuss   more

It is probably crass to cite oneself in an article, but I wrote a piece a few months ago in which I stated:
Many Democratic voters support the Party because they see it as the party of social liberalism.  While they may also support more government intervention in the economy than most Republican voters, that support   more

Houston Rockets star and basketball legend Yao Ming retired this month at the age of 30.  He is a much-beloved player who helped promote professional basketball around the world and his retirement was the result of injuries he sustained playing the sport he loved.  Normally, this would be a fairly standard sports story, but for   more