Twice-convicted felons, once they’ve completed their parole, are now eligible to serve on Dallas’ boards and commissions. Wednesday, the Dallas City Council voted to change an existing city policy that limited candidates for appointment to bodies like the Park Board or the City Plan Commission to one felony, no matter…
The Dallas City Council adopted the new Please Lord Make Dwaine Shut Up Act on Wednesday, reducing the amount of time council members may speak on any issue. The Dwaine part of the title, which I made up, is for council member Dwaine Caraway. The rest of it you can…
SMU graduate Hope Hicks, President Donald Trump’s 29-year-old confidant, gatekeeper and communications director, will leave the White House sometime in the next few weeks, according to reporting from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. Although Hicks testified for the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, reportedly admitting she told “white…
There he is. Standing on a huge rock. Sitting on top of the world. “I just wanna say that yes, in fact, I do know how lucky I am,” says Wally Lynn, arms and heart wide open as he and his cup of Jack Daniel’s welcome a couple hundred guests…
Rangers broadcaster C.J. Nitkowski’s social media-inspired comeuppance couldn’t have come as a shock to anyone who’s paid much attention to the former big league vagabond. Since giving up on his Major League dreams and becoming a broadcaster in 2013, Nitkowski has frequently shown himself to be thin-skinned, reactionary and generally…
It’s not clear yet whether there truly are dark forces gathering on the horizon against Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax or just a chain of fools, but one thing is unmistakably true: Dallas’ first city manager in living memory to come from outside City Hall had better not walk by…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is under indictment for several felonies, had a grand time in Washington on Tuesday, convening with several of his fellow Republican attorneys general to roll out their plan to kill the Affordable Care Act and picking up a primary endorsement from President Donald Trump…
Seizing on a teachable moment and the chance for a little publicity, Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree said Tuesday that his deputies are expected to take immediate action, rather than wait for backup, if they encounter an active shooter. Murphree’s directive comes 13 days after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz allegedly shot and…
Being the Democratic primary leader for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat sounds like an uphill race before the starter pistol fires. President Donald Trump won 227 of the state’s 254 counties. The New York Times called Democratic primary front-runner Beto O’Rourke “The Lone Star Long Shot” in its recent profile of…
The city of Dallas has a new plan to fight panhandling. Same as 2017. Same as 2016 and 2015, too. The difference this time is End Panhandling Now, as the new program is (directly but not creatively) named, has the support of the City Council, as well as some ideas…
The idea, put forward by Dallas officials and reported in the Observer and elsewhere throughout the end of 2017, was that the City Council was going to do something about the bikes this spring. The public, inasmuch as the public is represented by Dallas social media, was fed up with the…
Texas Rangers TV color analyst CJ Nitkowski caught a lot of flak on Twitter over the weekend after he liked a tweet from a group called the Proud Boys that included a photo of the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Proud Boys, established…
After Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwayne Caraway’s recent press conference telling the National Rifle Association to go home, a new petition is urging city officials to revoke the funds it put toward the NRA’s annual conference in May. Dallas resident Jonathan Herzog started the petition when he realized that city…
Solidifying a schism that spurred several fights during the last session of the Texas Legislature, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops announced late last week that the state’s Catholic parishes should cut off cooperation with Texas Right to Life, one of the state’s most influential anti-abortion organizations. According to the…
Strangest thing. I believe I’ve told you in previous years that I am annually privileged to attend the luncheon of Trinity Commons, the Trinity toll road booster group. I get to go because a generous member of the board has a robust sense of humor. Imagine my surprise last Friday…
Four years ago, things were easy for George P. Bush, son of Jeb and next in line for the Bush political dynasty. Endorsed by retiring incumbent Jerry Patterson and backed Texas’ Republican establishment, the then 38-year-old Bush cruised to his first elected office, becoming Texas land commissioner. In 2018, as…
It’s easy to forget, as much of a pro sports town as Dallas has become, that the city’s professional sports history is a comparatively short one. After a couple of false starts by both the NFL and AFL versions of the Dallas Texans, Dallas finally got its first permanent pro…
Dallas takes a certain pride in being contrarian. At a time when the terms collusion and obstruction of justice are frequently associated with news about the Trump White House and Republicans, one of Dallas’ oldest, most stubbornly impacted legal battles rears its head again, now hurling those terms, obstruction and…
Less than a week into early voting for this year’s Texas Republican and Democratic primaries, the state’s Democrats believe they could be seeing the blue wave many have expected as opposition to President Donald Trump solidifies ahead of the midterm elections. Across the state’s 15 largest counties, Democratic turnout is…
The National Rifle Association is coming to Dallas in May. No matter what Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway says, no matter how many times you call your City Council member and no matter how many times reporters ask Mike Rawlings why naked ladies are bad but AR-15s are OK, it’s…
A week has passed since the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a much-anticipated court ruling in O’Donnel v. Harris County, in which justices reaffirmed a lower court’s ruling that the cash bail system works for the rich but not the poor. “The wealthy arrestee is less likely to…
The advertising campaigns for the National Rifle Association’s streaming channel NRA TV have become something of a red-meat factory for its most ardent supporters and a target for criticism as the group turns its aim toward the media. The latest commercial featuring NRA TV host and former KXAS-TV (NBC 5) reporter…
