Intimidate = to compel or deter by…threat; extort = to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue (or illegal) power [Source of definitions: Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed]

New Year’s Eve into New Year’s morning is usually a jackpot for police calls — drunks, fights, bad decisions in bulk. But that year? Before dawn, things were weirdly quiet.

To the Editor: A recent news article (at insideclimatenews.com) reported that the Texas House of Representatives Energy Resources Committee had held a public hearing on House Bill 4572 on April 14. That bill, filed by State Rep.

To the Editor: Several writers have weighed in on the competence and compassion of Elon Musk’s efforts to make the US government efficient. That discussion includes his competence to revise Social Security, to make it great again.

To the Editor: Recently I read something written by Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor in Germany during WWII. Because he protested Hitler’s regime of restrictive laws, suspension of rights and the targeting for elimination of millions of Jews and other scapegoats, Pastor Niemoller was sent to a concentration camp.

To the Editor: The Washington Times recently published an article with the title: “Biden Migrant Surge Pushed Illegal Immigrant Population To Nearly 19 million.” The reason Biden allowed so much more illegal border crossing than Trump is because Democrats perceived political advantage from the surge. Biden even flew in an additional 320,000 immigrants from Haiti.

To the Editor: We all have read of the windfall that the new owners of St. Mark’s Medical Center are going to make, having bought the hospital at an unreasonably low price.

To the Editor: I truly wake up some mornings and wonder if I’m still dreaming. China buying property all over the US, students at Ivy League universities being allowed to protest and support countries that have attacked Israel and America, and Muslims trying to set up their own communities in parts of Texas and under their own law.

I was sitting there a few mornings ago watching a pair of bluebirds making a nest in our bluebird box. They’d been flirting with the box for several days.

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven...”(Matthew 16:18-19) For one who walks into the stunning basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on the outskirts of Rome, this command of Jesus to Peter will reverberate in the mind and hearts of those who enter this grand basilica that also houses the body of St. Paul. Such stirrings of the heart will lift a visitor’s eyes to the rim of the ceiling of the basilica to see the portraits of the 266 popes that have guided the Catholic Church since the time of this scene in Scripture of Jesus entrusting St. Peter the keys to His Church.