In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court answered the question of whether the U.S. Constitution allows the Ten Commandments to be displayed on government property with a resounding It depends. In a pair of decisions handed down on the same day, the court ruled both that a Ten Commandments display at…
Five months ago, Dallas didn’t even register on Forbes rundown of U.S. metro areas with the rosiest employment prospects, losing out to San Jose and Austin but also to Birmingham, Charleston, and Lakeland, Florida. That was a prediction based on a survey of employers’ hiring predictions. Now that the magazine…
When city staff first unveiled their vision to transform Dallas into a “zero waste” city by 2040, there was immediate pushback. No one quibbled with the goal of waste reduction, but pretty much everyone quibbled with the way the city should get there. Environmentalists critiqued the plan for putting off…
Last Sunday, a man was out checking his hog traps in a pasture in rural Erath County, some 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, when he stumbled upon 43-year-old Ricky Stephens. Stephens was alive, but barely. He had been severely beaten and was covered in severe burns, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune…
Dallas Republican state Senator John Carona wormed his way into beer lovers’ good graces two weeks ago when he cosponsored a quartet of bills aimed at making things easier on craft brewers in Texas. The legislation, which has the support of both an impressive roster of lawmakers from both sides…
The sequester, that “Damocles sword” hanging perilously above federal spending and set to fall March 1, was supposed to be an instrument so blunt, which would cut so deeply and indiscriminately, that the cost of not reaching a bipartisan compromise on debt reduction would become unfathomable. Now, of course, it’s…
In 2006, Kinky Friedman — singer, songwriter, satirist, head Jewboy in charge — ran as an Independent for governor of Texas. Although he ultimately received less than 13 percent of the vote, it was still a memorable campaign, featuring slogans like, “Why the Hell Not?” and “How Hard Could It…
It’s an impressive feat to show up in The New Yorker as a freshman Congressman, and kudos to Senator Ted Cruz for pulling it off. Cruz has been facing widespread criticism for, among other things, his aggressive questioning of Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary. Jane Mayer joined…
Listeners tuning into ESPN Radio 103.3 this morning and expecting Ben Rogers and Jeff Wade’s irreverent local sports commentary were instead greeted with the nationally syndicated blather of Colin Cowherd. Hosts of the morning-drive Ben and Skin Show, Rogers and Wade Tweeted over the weekend that they didn’t re-sign with…
As Texas’ prison population has declined in recent years and criminal justice advocates and fiscal conservatives alike have questioned the wisdom of locking people up for minor, non-violent drug and property offenses, Dawson State Jail has become a prime target for closure. Last month, a couple dozen sentencing reform and…
Michelle Hickman, a Houston-area mother, became Internet famous in late 2011 when she was harassed by Target employees for publicly breastfeeding her infant. That happened despite Target’s breastfeeding-friendly corporate policy and a 18-year-old state law that gives women the right to nurse “in any location in which the mother is…
Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm will tell the city council on Wednesday that she had every authority to lease a 22-acre parcel of parkland to Trinity East, the gas-drilling company that wants frack the Trinity River floodplain, despite that land not appearing in original lease approved by city council. She’ll…
When the City Council passed new rules in December laying down a $300 fine on any driver caught cutting off, or throwing things at or otherwise behaving dangerously around bicyclists, there was an acknowledged need for a public awareness campaign to let drivers know about the new rules. No one…
Update at 4:43 p.m.: Dallas County Juvenile Department director Terry Smith sends her response: “Actually the county is ready to go and I am unaware of any issues.” Original post: Ground on the Letot Girls’ Residential Therapy Center, the $9.8 million facility planned in Northwest Dallas for child sex trafficking…
If Andy Roddick didn’t walk away from tennis as the biggest asshole in the professional game, he was definitely in top two or three. His wasn’t the lovable brashness of, say, a John McEnroe either, but a whiny, self-indulgence reminiscent of a spoiled toddler. Justly or not, a lawsuit filed…
The Texas Department of Public Safety got itself in a bit of a public relations mess last October when state troopers in a helicopter tracking a red pickup suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants opened fire, killing two Guatemalans and raising inevitable questions about the appropriateness of a law enforcement agency…
Last summer brought us the story of Anson Chi, a Plano man who’s accused of trying to detonate a bomb next to a gas main on West Park Road. The bomb did go off, perhaps earlier than Chi was hoping; police believe it detonated while he was “tampering” with the…
Joey Dauben’s reign as the muckraking king of Ellis County came to an ignominious end last month when he was sentenced to three 10-year sentences for raping a boy, then 14, on a church camping trip in 2007. It was an ironic end for the 32-year-old, who crusaded against child…
Hidden deep within the bureaucratic folds of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which devotes most of its resources to overseeing cosmetologists, air conditioner repairmen, auctioneers and the like, is the state’s weather modification bureau. It’s not nearly as post-apocalyptic as it sounds. You might use the term “cloud…
An appeals committee at City Hall on Thursday upheld Dallas Police Chief David Brown’s decision to fire a 911 call-taker over her mishandling of a call last August. Angelia Herrod-Graham answered the 911 call from the mother of Deanna Cook, saying she hadn’t seen her daughter in two days and…
State Representative Van Taylor, a real-estate investment banker from Plano, has introduced legislation that would settle, once and for all, who gets the last word on drilling under private property: That would be the Railroad Commission of Texas. The bill, filed Tuesday, would strip from Texas municipalities the ability to…
The Economist isn’t conservative in the American sense of the word, which has come to be defined as much as by views on abortion and Jesus as by a desire for limited government, but it’s consistent in its support of free market capitalism relatively unfettered by government. The magazine did…
