Texas Observer reader,
The following are my remarks, in part, from our May 6 MOLLYs fundraiser gala:
Last year, some of you may remember, we published a very viral story in which we identified an ICE prosecutor in Dallas as the operator of an extremely, extremely racist X account.
In terms of impact, everything seemed to be going well. Congress members demanded answers, and the prosecutor was quickly yanked off the job. But the months dragged on, and we just could not get ICE to confirm whether the guy was being terminated.
Well, less than two weeks into the new year, it wasn’t ICE but a source at the courthouse who tipped off our special investigative correspondent, Steven Monacelli, that the prosecutor was coming back to work. Steven managed to be there to document the man’s return; Congressman Marc Veasey made a last-ditch effort in the U.S. House to reduce the prosecutor’s salary to $1, but it failed. And that was that.
Maybe you find that shocking, and maybe not. I’ll admit that it shocked me a bit. It showed me the full depth of this administration’s commitment to white supremacy. Not even a bit player—who’d been tweeting while in court, mind you—could be sacrificed to save some face.
It could be enough to discourage some, but it wasn’t—and won’t be—enough to discourage us at the Texas Observer.
July/August 2026 cover (Illustration by Clay Rodery)
We kept going. The very same week we reported the prosecutor news, the same correspondent did another story for us identifying four North Texas businesses as having ties to the neo-nazi group Patriot Front, and Francesca D’Annunzio exposed state police’s use of a shadowy cell phone-tracking software.
Soon, Michelle Pitcher revealed an overdose crisis within Texas state jails and began work on a narrative podcast, a totally new undertaking for the Observer. Justin Miller exposed the cost to the taxpayer of our attorney general’s extensive campaigning and networking around the state and abroad. Lise Olsen dug up a botched murder investigation down in the Rio Grande Valley. Gaige Davila broke the news of an essential immigration court interpreter being targeted and arrested by ICE at a South Texas airport.
And Josephine Lee proved that concrete, tangible impact is still achieved through investigative reporting—as her work cost Houston’s state-imposed superintendent a six-figure, most likely illegal moonlighting contract.
You see, in Texas, it’s all too easy to get discouraged if you don’t properly calibrate. If you count on electoral victory every two-year cycle, or on accountability for elected officials each time their malfeasance is exposed, well, that’s simply not the rhythm of our struggle here.
We take our wins where we get them, we are not discouraged, and we keep going.
Solidarity,
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The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our July/August 2026 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.
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