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Brantley Hargrove

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Political Theater at Congressional Hearing on EPA's "Overreach" in Texas

By Brantley Hargrove
Feb 6, 2014

The fact that the EPA wasn't invited to testify at a hearing titled "Examining the Science of EPA Overreach: A Case Study in Texas" tells you just about everything you need to know. It served no discernible purpose apart from allowing GOP legislators to get their licks in and accuse...
Video Purporting to Show Mockery of Greg Abbott's Disability Is Unbelievably Misleading

By Brantley Hargrove
Feb 4, 2014

Conservative agent provocateur James O'Keefe's latest undercover video sting seemed to feed the narrative that Democrats just go around constantly making fun of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's wheelchair. This is what O'Keefe is good at: Using hidden cameras to film targets, then editing the hell out of the footage...
New Rule Aimed at Putting Actual Experts on Textbook Review Panels Passes State Board

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 31, 2014

File this under State Board of Education news that isn't depressing and won't cause you to despair for Texas public education. The SBOE passed long-overdue rules Friday aimed at giving priority to the placement of experts and teachers with actual subject-matter expertise on textbook review panels. It's a positive step...
New Forecast Should Drive Stake Through the Heart of Proposed Energy Tax

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 24, 2014

With the appointment of Governor Rick Perry's former chief of staff to the Public Utility Commission, it seemed all but assured that we were headed toward a multi-billion-dollar subsidy for electricity generators -- an energy tax based on questionable assumptions about how much juice Texas will actually need in the...
Argyle ISD "Marshals" Will Soon Carry Guns on Campus

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 22, 2014

Like air marshals', the identities of Argyle ISD's "marshals" will remain secret. This anonymous contingent of staff members, known only to school administration, the local police, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, has been authorized to possess handguns on campus to respond to the threat of an "active shooter."...
Behind Texas Electric Grid Emergency Alert, a Power Plant Failure, Not Demand

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 21, 2014

ERCOT, the manager of Texas' electric grid, issued an emergency alert Saturday. Apparently, a single power plant malfunctioned, went offline and single-handedly cut into the 2,300 megawatts of extra capacity we keep on reserve for just such occasions. To keep that number from plunging further, ERCOT called on its demand-response...
Dangerously Explosive Quantities of Gas Found in Parker County Water at Center of Fracking Controversy

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 17, 2014

As we reported last summer, the Texas Railroad Commission has agreed to take another look at a case of potential water contamination due to fracking in Parker County. It has been nearly three years since the agency, notoriously chummy with the oil and gas companies it is supposed to regulate,...
UTA Researchers Create Super Tiny Micro-Windmills

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 15, 2014

Think of it as the intersection between origami and semiconductor manufacturing. Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have invented a nickel-alloy windmill so tiny that 10 of them could be comfortably anchored to a grain of rice. Smitha Rao and J.-C Chiao successfully tested the device, composed entirely...
Junk Science Review: Texas to Examine Microscopic Hair Analysis in Criminal Convictions

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 14, 2014

Less than a year since the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would review the "highly unreliable" results of microscopic hair analysis in federal cases, the State Forensic Science Commission will do the same in Texas. In cases nationally where DNA has later exonerated the wrongfully imprisoned, microscopic hair analysis...
Dallas Safari Club's Black Rhino Permit Sold for Much Less Than Expected

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 13, 2014

The Dallas Safari Club had hoped the permit to shoot a black rhino -- one of a few thousand remaining on the planet -- would have auctioned for close to a million dollars. If scarcity was the quality that drove the price, the ultimate trophy doesn't get much more endangered...
Inspector General May Have Cleared EPA in Flaming Water Case, But Parker County Man Says It Caved to Politics

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 10, 2014

The EPA inspector general dumped it right before Christmas, when the media had checked out on holiday auto-pilot. Because of this curious timing, the report didn't get nearly the play it should have. But it can be summed up like this -- given the EPA's statutory authority under the Safe...
Texas Parks and Wildlife Now Has a SWAT Team

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 10, 2014

The man in the photo to the left isn't a Ranger in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. He's a Texas game warden, kitted out to check your deer tags or lead a paramilitary, kick-the-door-in assault on your tent. The militarization of every possible law enforcement entity in America is complete: Texas Parks...
Meet Lady Theresa Thombs, State Board of Education Candidate, Dame of Justice, Carrier of Diplomatic Papers

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 9, 2014

We missed a fascinating SBOE campaign forum in Fort Worth Monday night. It didn't start when Tea Party candidate Eric Mahroum kicked off the evening with some fringe buzzwords like CSCOPE and Common Core, and an invocation of the former President Ronald Reagan's "are you better off?" speech. Nor did...
D/FW International Airport Is Second in the Country for Confiscating Loaded Guns

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 8, 2014

The only thing surprising about the fact that TSA agents confiscate a ton of loaded weapons from passengers attempting to board aircraft at D/FW International Airport is that Atlanta apparently confiscates more of them. Houston comes in third, nationally, behind us. So says the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, which...
Dallas Police Chief David Brown Would Prefer Not to Be Called a "Cocksucker"

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 7, 2014

Dallas Police Chief David Brown engaged in a brief Twitter spat with DMN reporter Scott Goldstein Monday. It all stems from an incident outside of Brown's office, when Tanya Eiserer, longtime crime reporter with The Dallas Morning News, dissatisfied with the fact that she would not get the exclusive she'd...
For Barnett Shale, 2013 Saw Drilling Activity at Its Lowest Ebb in a Decade

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 3, 2014

The Barnett Shale set off a national renaissance in the production of oil and natural gas through fracking. But as we look back on 2013, it's clear that the boom has left North Texas behind, for now anyway. Drilling and permitting activity in the area has fallen to a 10-year...
Fear, Home Damage, and Dismayingly Few Answers at Townhall on Azle Earthquakes

By Brantley Hargrove
Jan 3, 2014

The Azle High auditorium was filled near to capacity Thursday evening with an occasionally raucous crowd that demanded answers state regulators couldn't -- or weren't willing -- to answer about why, over the last two months, earthquakes in a seismically silent area have grown in number and intensity. Peer-reviewed research...
Harold Simmons, Exemplar of a New Class of Political Mega-Donor, Is Dead

By Brantley Hargrove
Dec 30, 2013

Harold Simmons, 82, who in the last presidential election became the most prolific political donor in the country, died Saturday at the Baylor University Medical Center. His legacy is complicated -- at once toxic, literally and figuratively, and marked by laudable philanthropy. He grew up in Golden, Texas, the son...
An All-Access Jay Z Tour Pass, A Fake Italian Name, and an Arrest at the Jay Z Show

By Brantley Hargrove
Dec 23, 2013

Something clearly didn't quite wash with this Gian Carlo Donatelli guy. Here he was, inside a event-level area at the American Airlines Center, almost half an hour before the doors would open for the rest of Jay Z's ticket-holding fans Saturday night. He flashed a Magna Carter All-Access World Tour...
Why the District Attorney's Arson Case Against Sonia Cacy Remains Weak

By Brantley Hargrove
Dec 20, 2013

In the this week's cover story, we examined the case of Sonia Cacy, the Fort Stockton woman convicted in 1993 of setting her uncle ablaze with gasoline. In the years since, the evidence against her hasn't withstood scrutiny. Cacy was paroled six years into a 99-year sentence based on expert...
Texas Electricity Prices Are Falling, but That Doesn't Mean Deregulation Lowering Them

By Brantley Hargrove
Dec 19, 2013

The deregulation of the electricity market has been a mixed bag for Texans. On the bright side, we paid less for power last year than the national average. The architects of the energy-only market (primarily electricity generators) would call this a coup -- proof that consumer choice and the free...
Panel Rejects Alleged Errors in Biology Textbook Cited By Creationist Reviewers

By Brantley Hargrove
Dec 18, 2013

Megapublisher Pearson's high-school textbook Biology ran into trouble this fall with State Board of Education-appointed reviewers. Citing supposed errors in passages focusing on evolution, Ide Trotter, a chemical engineer by training and a creationist, recommended rejection one of the most widely used texts in the country. In response, Pearson stood...