James C. Moore

Guns

Cemetery America

"We avert our eyes from the cause and nod sadly at the effect, but take no steps to prescribe a solution. The culture of the gun in the U.S. has lost no battles in the modern era. Our politics keep fertilizing the bloody fields with fewer and fewer controls."

Trump

A Garden of Stone

Arlington National Cemetery was supposed to be their last place of sanctuary. Surely, no politician would ever dare think to produce a campaign commercial. Who walks among those gardens of stone and contemplates themselves? Had America ever produced such a politician?

Trump

Lying All Along the Line

"Trump often looked constipated or maybe he was grimacing at the memories of how he had been diminished to a punch line by speakers in Chicago. He was cuddling up next to his favorite issue, snuggled there with his lies about how he had built 400 miles of wall on the border."

Religion

Boxing with God

"Tonight at 7:00 p.m., Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick will join Matt Crouch, Chairman of Trinity Broadcasting Network, and Dr. Phil for a thought-provoking discussion: whether President Trump’s survival of the recent assassination attempt was a mere stroke of luck or divine intervention."

Trump

American Dreaming

"We are tired of his anger and name calling and lying about subjects as mundane as crowd-size comparisons between his speeches and those of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Further, how does he think he can win by calling Kamala Harris a “fucking bitch” while rolling around on a golf cart?"

trave;

On the Loose

"I never stopped returning to the Grand Canyon and never will. There is no medication to cure political and emotional ills coursing through your country and your brain but one hike into the canyon can temporarily render them into near irrelevance."

Election

The Tortilla Curtain

No matter how often Greg Abbott and Trump lie about her being a failed “border czar,” Harris’ responsibility was to mitigate the root causes of migration, which, unsurprisingly, she accomplished.

Election

Hillbilly Hypocrite

"Vance also does not care about the Constitution, which he would be sworn to uphold should Trump and he win. Vance said he would not have certified the 2020 results were he the VP. He would happily defy the constitutional laws he was sworn to uphold."

personal stories

A Summertime Dream

"It's hard not to feel hopeful on days like this and it is just as difficult to avoid thinking about how little America has changed since that Dallas gunfire took us off course. We have had our victories, but they feel now as if they are dissolving in the old anger and we are back where we started."

Biden

A Speech for the American President

I realize this might sound awkward, but the electoral processes in many nations tend to be far shorter and less costly than the ones by which Americans choose their leaders. This can be done, and a new national discourse will arise that will show voters the strength of the Democratic Party...

War

July 1, 1916

“Boys were falling on either side until there were only two of us left. He got it. He was killed. Then I got it. I got two bullets in me. I dropped. Blood was coming out of me...I stopped the blood as best I could...I said my prayers and I seen my mom, as far as I knew, but I knew she wasn’t there.”

Trump

The Old Man with a Spray Tan

The notion that anyone can accept the idea that the former president is the last, best hope to save American democracy is repulsive in the extreme. The opposite, in fact, is true.

After D-Day

The most disturbing memory I had was the day he was angry at my mother and he broke a broom handle in two and stabbed her in the arm. I saw the wooden shaft plunge into her forearm, I tried to stop Daddy - later I woke up on the kitchen floor. What makes a man do such a thing?

Trump

An Innocent Man?

Republicans are so concerned about Trump’s political ego and their proximity to his putative power that they are willing to toss the rule of law into a ditch flowing with their lickspittle, and further Trump’s destruction of U.S. democratic institutions.

War

When Johnny Came Home

The odds of Johnny Mata encountering harm or great danger were considered minimal. But Nancili Mata knew her husband, and it made her worry while her family expressed confidence.

Texas Politics

Darlin' of the Devil

Label it evil: the drowning of immigrants, the dismantling of public education, children that go without healthcare, pardoning murderers, and making sure the next school shooter can buy a gun unimpeded. It's the work of a Devil.

Humor

The Laughing Legend

"I sure wasn’t reassured by the flight attendant pointing out emergency exits in the event of a crash. Folks, I’ve seen airplane crashes; there are hundreds of exits.”

Gaza

The Truth Among Ourselves

As the president spoke of the Nazi’s attempted genocide, Israel’s taking of the Rafah Crossing in Southern Gaza signified a new assault on what international critics are increasingly characterizing as an ongoing genocide of Palestinians perpetrated by the Israelis.

Journalism

The Newsman

Dan Rather's story as a journalist and a Texan is compelling and is the subject of a new Netflix documentary. He was dogged and unafraid and at 92, he is still relevant. His own story might be the best one he’s ever told.

Travel

The River Road

"The one that calls me constantly is the River Road, Texas Ranch to Market 170, from Presidio to Study Butte. I've worn out a few sets of motorcycle tires riding that pavement through its mesas and volcanic rock formations, stealing glimpses of the Rio Grande between the canebrakes and blind rises."

US History

What Kind of an American Are You?

"Trump’s anger is not likely to be constrained by a courtroom. He will send emails to supporters, many of whom struggle to pay their own bills, begging to give him money because he’s a victim. They will send their cash and credit card payments to a man who claims to be among the world’s richest."

climate change

Haunted by Waters

Every new home is another straw sipping from the reservoirs, which, increasingly in the added heat of climate change, have turned into what a Texas drought expert refers to as “giant evaporation ponds.” Evaporation rates of surface water in the Hill Country are approximately 57 inches per year.

Journalism

The Tragedy of Sky Queen

28-year-old Karen Key was shining up a star for herself in the competitive business of TV news. Key was the first female helicopter news pilot in TV journalism. She could fly a Bell Jet Ranger and talk into the camera with the Rockies as a backdrop - her career was ascending as fast as her takeoffs.

national politics

Cracks in the American Mosaic

I brought the contradictions up with Geiorge W. Bush during an off-camera interview in 2004 and asked him how he could reconcile the inherent meanness of the strategy with who he was as a person, and all he said was, “It’s just politics, Jimmy.”

Immigration

The Art of Hypocrisy

Not being White and living on the border, which is more than 90 percent of the population, became an even greater liability when Abbott and the Texas legislature passed a law to give state and local officers the power to arrest illegal immigrants.