The world learned Thursday morning that journalist and author Michael Wolff has sold the TV rights to his searing, maybe factual, exposé of the Trump administration, Fire and Fury, for more than $1 million. For that kind of money, one can expect an A-list cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman would have…
The new Dallas city manager gave the City Council a briefing Wednesday on his new scientific analysis tool for the city. I watched. I have a prediction. At some point in the not-too-distant future, the new city manager will be burned as a witch. Sorry, I am not actually taking…
At some point after Dallas recovers from the current crisis of life-threatening 40-degree temperatures and snow dustings, work should begin on removing the fake kayak rapids that the city built in the Trinity River near downtown in 2011 at a cost of $4 million. And our struggle to figure out…
The Dallas City Council agreed Wednesday afternoon to pick up the tab for the now defunct Dallas County Schools’ school crossing guard program through the end of the 2017-18 school year. The city will pay $2.4 million out of its general and reserve funds to continue the program, which the…
Considering what happened in Dallas elections last year, one might’ve assumed something drastic was about to happen after seeing a “Request to Implement Policy Related to Mail Ballot Applications” on the County Commissioners Court agenda this week. Wrong. Last spring, a West Dallas City Council race was thrown into chaos…
Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez’s bid for Texas’ Democratic gubernatorial nomination is off to a slow start, but her campaign says she’ll get up to speed with the rest of the field as she settles into her role as a candidate. Andrew White, son of former Texas Gov. Mark…
Last week, Donald Trump allegedly used some colorful language during a diatribe about wanting more immigrants from places like Norway and fewer immigrants from “shitholes” like El Salvador, Haiti and Nigeria. While much of the media attention on Trump’s remarks has focused, appropriately, on their xenophobia, others, like Robert Jeffress, pastor…
From this far away, Washington is all kabuki theater. President Donald Trump appears in elaborate makeup with flamboyant hand gestures and pronounces that black nations are shitholes. Behind him, a chorus line of lovely liberals fan themselves elaborately and swoon. Please. Here, where we live, we see this stuff all…
Barring a last minute appeal, the Arlington Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade that’s stirred controversy for choosing Texas Governor Greg Abbott as its honorary grand marshal will not go forward. The organizers of the parade failed follow the steps necessary to get an events permit for the parade, the…
If white supremacist protesters want to defend the Confederate monuments at the Texas Capitol, they’re going to have to do so without their tiki torches. With one notable exception, the Texas Department of Public Safety is doing everything it can to prevent violent protests at the Capitol in 2018, banning…
Almost four months have passed since we tore down the Robert E. Lee statue in Dallas, and I haven’t noticed any ominous rebel armies forming on the horizon, unless you count people with Dixie flag decals on the back windows of their pickup trucks. If that’s all it’s going to…
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted 98 7-Eleven locations across the U.S. on Wednesday morning as part of an investigation into illegal immigration. Six of the stores targeted are in Dallas-Fort Worth. According to ICE, the agency arrested 21 people suspected of being in the United States illegally during…
Michigan’s favorite son and Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze was on Facebook live Wednesday afternoon, responding to readers’ questions about politics, Dallas’ future, biting dogs, The Dallas Morning News’ Texan of the Year and a whole bunch of comments about whether he’s a Texan. (Hint: He doesn’t like okra. Enough…
Homeless encampments are a goad, a stick in the eye, a disquieting reminder that misery and chaos are only a few quick steps from the land of comfort and safety. It would be nice if the sight always opened our hearts and made us weep, but sometimes it goes the…
It is a strange choice. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, not exactly known for a positive record on civil or minority rights, is going to be the honorary grand marshal of Arlington’s new, Toyota-sponsored, Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade next Monday, leaving many DFW civil rights organizations wondering what the…
Right now, Dallas residents and visitors are free to panhandle whenever they want, however they want, as long as they don’t solicit from people in cars or commit another criminal offense, like assault. That’s the upshot of the Dallas Police Department’s new training bulletin on panhandling enforcement, issued in response…
Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez called for an end to “hate and vitriol” and opportunity “as big as the Texas sky” Sunday afternoon during her official campaign kickoff event at Tyler Station in Oak Cliff. “We should be lending a hand up, not tearing them down. We must be…
The small government conservatives would have a decent point to make, if they only meant it. We can’t always count on distant, national, career government officials to wipe our chins for us. But the first time something does go seriously wrong — as things are wont to do in the…
Hope Hicks can now add “being objectified by the president of the United States” to the narrow list of accomplishments she’s racked up as she’s gone from SMU English major to White House communications director. According to Michael Wolff’s new presidential tell-all Fire and Fury, Hicks, a former model and Gossip…
Over the last couple of weeks, a small furor has developed around the issue of combating panhandling in Dallas. The week before Christmas, several Dallas Police Department commanders ordered their troops to stop issuing citations for “solicitation by coercion” — aggressive panhandling — or panhandling near gas pumps or ATMs…
Looks like former San Antonio mayor and HUD Secretary Julian Castro is really running for president in 2020. Great. Maybe now HUD will show me those documents it’s been promising for a year and a half. It’s simple. If he’s going to run for president under the Democratic flag, then Castro needs…
Without some action from Dallas, children attending school within the city won’t have crossing guards starting at the end of January. On Wednesday, the City Council learned about this unintended consequence of voters’ November decision to eliminate Dallas County Schools. Texas law requires all cities with populations of more than…
