Fort Worth Senator Wendy Davis announced this week that she’ll be teaming up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to remind state law enforcement agencies, once again, that a new law requires them to report how many untested rape kits they have in evidence. At the same time, she…
If Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins has a direct foil in the state of Texas, it’s soon-to-be-former Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley. Watkins, actively pursuing innocence claims and making Dallas the leading county for exonerations in Texas, is an outlier, albeit one who is gaining supporters around the country…
All you need to know about U.S. Representative Ralph Hall’s decisive win in the 4th Congressional District Tuesday night is that he went skydiving on Memorial Day. He wore a jumpsuit printed with undulating American flags and fell from the plane, plummeting briefly in free-fall, his arms flapping slightly, like…
Today, the unalloyed, wedge issue-driven, throbbing heart of the Grand Ol’ Party will cast their ballots so that the candidates can stop chest-thumping about who’s the real conservative and start running against Obama because, let’s face it, this is Texas and they don’t really have any one else to attack…
Americans United For Life, one of the nation’s largest anti-abortion advocacy groups, has released its annual report, Defending Life 2012, complete with an enthusiastic blurb from Governor Rick Perry. On the whole, they seem very pleased with Texas and its “aggressive legislative action” to restrict abortion. Texas, they write, has…
The primary for the U.S. Senate, House and a slew of local races is coming up — on Tuesday to be exact, with early voting ending today — which is why you’ve been seeing a ramp-up in the … revelations. Seriously. These just blew my mind. For example: Did you…
When I wrote yesterday about Mayor Mike backtracking from his backtrack on the Trinity Toll Road, I glossed over the real purpose of his visit to the Oak Cliff Chamber, which was to pitch his GrowSouth initiative. For the uninitiated, GrowSouth is the plan to revitalize southern Dallas, which Rawlings…
As a nickname, “Dead Bird” hasn’t fit so well since the city of Dallas’ airport in South Oak Cliff changed its name from Redbird to Dallas Executive a decade ago in hopes of sparking a revival of the 67-year-old airfield, which tends to be forgotten in the shadow of DFW…
View You too can see if your candidate lives in the Texas 33rd Congressional District When the polls close on the Democratic primary for Texas’ new 33rd Congressional District, surprisingly few of the nearly dozen candidates will have cast a vote for themselves. We received a note from a Friend…
With the race for the 33rd Congressional District by all accounts a two-man race that is growing pettier by the day, it’s easy to forget that nine other Democrats are jostling for third place in the May 29 primary. Unless, of course, you happen to glance up from the bumper…
Ever since Ted Cruz announced that Sarah Palin is endorsing him in his bid for Senate, we’ve been clustered around the office phone (we only have one), waiting patiently to hear a robo-call from ex-Alaska Governor Palin. It never came. That’s because, as it turns out, Palin’s calls may have…
Dallas has a knack for self-regard. Self-promotion? Not so much. The city’s efforts at branding itself (“Live Large. Think Big.”) are, well, embarrassing. We’ve had nothing with the catchiness, not to mention production values, of Las Vegas’ “What happens here, stays here.” But Vegas has a slush fund of $95.5…
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the race for the 33rd Congressional District is still a pissing match likely to end up in a runoff between between Domingo Garcia and Marc Veasey for the Democratic nomination. A quick recap: Garcia called big SUVs un-American, which led Veasey to proclaim…
While some in Congress have raised concerns about Facebook’s privacy policies and others are already grousing about the company driving the “biggest Mack truck ever driven through the stock option loophole” with a $16 billion tax deduction, a pair of local congressmen are liking Facebook very much. Representatives Pete Sessions…
Super PAC Campaign for Primary Accountability, a bipartisan political organization that claims to have its barrels loaded for both parties, just fired its opening fusillade. It aims to oust two long-serving congressmen in what would otherwise be shoe-in primaries. The targets: One El Paso Democrat and U.S. Representative Ralph Hall…
Much has been written about the now-certain $25 million renovation and expansion of the Cotton Bowl and the subsequent announcement that the stadium will host the annual cross-border skirmish between the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma (and their football teams) through at least 2020.But who cares about…
There are 11 candidates in the crowded Democratic primary for the new congressional district spanning from Oak Cliff to Fort Worth, but the race is quickly sinking into a political pissing match involving just two as the May 29 primary approaches. Marc Veasey, a state representative from Fort Worth, and…
It was Dallas city council member Tennell Atkins who, during yesterday’s discussion of the city’s still-far-off gas-drilling regulations, posed the million-dollar question. “Do you think that it’s safe to drill in the city of Dallas?” he asked task force chair Lois Finkelman. Finkelman was noncommittal. That left others to speak…
The Washington Blade, D.C.’s main LGBT news outlet, is reporting that Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has placed Chief of Staff Murat Gokcigdem on leave following questions about a 2010 e-mail.According to the piece, staffer Chris Crowe was seeking a letter of recommendation from Johnson for a position in Obama’s Treasury Department…
With early voting for the May 29 primary election already underway, and with the federal government’s tet-a-tet with Texas over its 2011 voter ID law far from settled, the ACLU of Texas wants to remind you that no, you don’t need to show an ID to vote and if a…
Four years have passed since Trinity East signed on as the largest gas lease-holder with the city of Dallas, and the company still doesn’t know when it will be allowed to drill its first well — if ever. As the company’s name suggests, Trinity East wants to drill for natural…
At some point, the vacant triangle of land running along the west side of Central Expressway just north of Lemmon — the plot where the McKinney Avenue Trolley recently laid down its new turntable — will house tall buildings, mostly offices, 30 and 40 stories high.That’s the idea at least,…
