Property rights in Texas are supposed to be sacrosanct, practically God-given. So the ease with which pipeline companies seize private land through eminent domain is curious. The law here is anything but settled. That’s where landowners like Freddy Davenport come in. Increasingly, disputes between citizens like Davenport and huge pipeline…
A few years ago, in a case fracking opponents believed was the smoking gun they’d been waiting for, the Texas Railroad Commission sided with the industry. It said that Parker County homeowner Steve Lipsky’s gaseous and incredibly flammable water well was a product of naturally occurring, biogenic methane originating in…
Helen Pigg was still relatively spry back in 2011, at least for an 81-year-old. She was healthy and active, the historian for an association of retired Richardson school teachers and a supporter, online at least, of various progressive causes from the abolition of nuclear weapons to attacks on Chick-fil-A for…
The only crime Dallas police saw Fred Bradford Jr. commit when they came upon him on the night of April 21 was failure to wear a bike helmet. But, judging by the way he lurked next to the black sedan parked in the alley behind Kwick Stop Liquor in South…
All things considered, Mary Efurd is one of the lucky ones. She walked into Dr. Christopher Duntsch’s Texas Neurosurgery Institute in Plano on July 25, 2012 and emerged with her life. The same can’t be said at least two of his former patients, who died after Dunstch botched their surgeries,…
Ever heard the quotation, “Past is prologue”? The U.S. Supreme Court apparently hasn’t, and its ruling Tuesday on the Voting Rights Act virtually assured that we’re doomed to repeat history. In an incredible sweep, the majority chucked the nearly unanimous, bipartisan will of Congress and dismantled the preclearance measure of…
When Forbes estimates your net worth at $8.5 billion, dropping $1 million to solve a math problem or losing $16 million in a particularly disastrous weekend of poker amounts to little more than rounding errors on your checking account. But once the debits creep into nine figures, once you start…
Last May, as the clocked ticked down to Election Day, Domingo Garcia made a last-minute, $250,000 loan to his congressional campaign in hopes of clawing his way to the top of the crowded Democratic primary. It didn’t work. Garcia finished second in the May 29 primary, then lost to now-U.S…
Judging from some pretty spectacular video clips and photos, it’s little short of a miracle no one was killed in the December 3 fire that destroyed The Arbors of Las Colinas apartment complex in Irving. As it was, only one resident was taken to the hospital after falling from a…
For almost two years now, like an angry minnow nibbling at a whale, a coalition of labor groups operating as OURWalmart has been organizing nationwide protests against the retail giant, complaining of low wages, terrible benefits and the company’s general hostility toward organized labor. It started in late 2011, when…
In his book American Sniper, under the heading “Punching Out Scruff Face,” slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle claimed that in a 2006 he got into a bar fight with “Scruff Face,” a “celebrity” veteran. Kyle claimed the fight started because Scruff Face was insulting then-President George Bush, and then said…
The fight against drunk driving in Texas underwent a sea change in 1987. That’s when the Texas Supreme Court ruled that El Chico was liable for overserving a customer who subsequently caused a fatal car crash and when the legislature codified the decision in the Dram Shop Act, which allowed…
Remember how Governor Rick Perry called a special session to talk about redistricting? And remember how sophisticated political observers (i.e. everyone with eyes and a functioning brain) predicted that the special session would soon turn into a huge, nasty dogfight about abortion? Yeah, that’s happening. On Tuesday, Perry added “legislation…
Congress didn’t explicitly reference lactation when it passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. It merely said that employers can’t fire or punish women because of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” which would seem to encompass the postpartum activation of the mammary glands. U.S. District Judge Lynn D. Hughes…
It’s our sad duty this morning to bring you the last installment in the Case of the Psychic Who Couldn’t See Shit, aka Presley “Rhonda” Gridley. Just about a year ago, a Liberty County, Texas, couple, Joe Bankson and Gena Charlton, sued Gridley and a whole bunch of media outlets…
In the same way that Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name to KFC once America caught on to the fact that deep-frying things isn’t good for you, National Lead — one of the dozen stocks that comprised the original Dow Jones industrial average — became simply NL Industries. At some…
The Texas Civil Rights Project hoped that Skye Wyatt’s case would set a precedent. Wyatt, the activists claimed, was confronted by her two Kilgore High School softball coaches in the locker room after a team meeting, where they accused her of having a lesbian relationship with another girl. The coaches…
Not long ago, there was some discussion of whether Anson Chi, at that point the otherwise undistinguished author of a remarkably terrible novel (Yellow on the Outside Shame on the Inside: Asian Culture Revealed) really merited his own Wikipedia page. But then, in June 2012, he tried to blow up…
The trustees of 92-year-old Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in South Dallas realized they’d made a mistake almost as soon as they’d hired Calvin Wayne Thomas to tend their flock. His first sin was a minor one, coming during an early meeting to discuss church business that Thomas presided over…
Barrett Brown’s had a rough few months, each one a little worse than the last. In September, he was raided, arrested and ultimately charged with threatening an FBI agent on YouTube and Twitter. In December the feds threw some more charges at him, this time for sharing a link related…
Christine Sexton’s family made several calls to the River Oaks Jail on February 6. They’d paid a bondsman to bail her out as soon as she was transferred to the Tarrant County jail on a forgery charge she’d been picked up for four days earlier. They say a River Oaks…
The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System has had a rough few months, what with the widespread public perception that they’ve installed a big, fancy Eye of Sauron downtown . Also, they’re having to deal with a lot more reporters than usual, which no one enjoys. One of those reporters…
