The Observer’s Facebook page, thanks to our thoughtful, engaged readers, is one of the last bastions of civility on the internet. The same can’t be said for the rest of the social network, which remains today, as it ever was, a cesspool. Between the posts from former classmates who, in…
The 2018 Rangers are dead. Out of the race by May, this year’s model of Arlington’s finest limped to a 67-95 finish, ending up last in the American League West. That got their manager fired despite his having won two division championships in four seasons at the helm. They saw…
Last week The Dallas Morning News said in an editorial that Dallas police Chief Renee Hall did the right thing by firing a police officer who shot an innocent man in his own apartment: “It is right for Hall to expect better from her officers than the use of deadly…
Throughout 2017 and 2018, your good friends here at the Observer have strained to make sense, any sort of sense, out of the Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz and El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke. We’ve talked with O’Rourke about Cruz’s plan to have notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman…
(Editor’s note: I smoke, so I go outside our building a lot. Lot of birds crash into our glass office building, but right now it’s like a hummingbird apocalypse out there. I really like hummingbirds, and I’m the boss, so here’s a story. BTW, if you’re a hiker and like…
The second debate between Texas Senatorial candidates Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, previously set for Sunday night, has been postponed, the University of Houston announced Friday. Rather than taking on his challenger for another hour, Cruz will remain in Washington to participate in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination process over…
Political donations are behind an appellate court ruling that overturned a jury’s verdict requiring an apartment company to pay $1 million to two women raped by a man who entered their Garland home through a window with a broken latch, the women’s attorney claims in a motion filed this week…
Friday night, for a couple of hours at least, the sideshow will be center stage in Texas politics. After months of the Senate race between incumbent Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke sucking all the air out of the room, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez will get her…
After eight hours of deliberation, a Dallas County jury said Thursday afternoon they could not reach a verdict in the case against former Mesquite Police Department Officer Derick Wiley, charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an unarmed man who was trying to quiet the alarm on his…
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 100 people during a recently concluded 10-day sting targeting North Texas and Oklahoma, the agency announced Wednesday, continuing a trend in Texas throughout 2018. According to ICE, its “enforcement action” was intended to sweep up “criminal aliens and immigration violators” in the area…
With the HQ2 announcement still shining in the distance — Jeff Bezos said earlier this month that it would be made by the end of the year — Dallas got a decent-sized chunk of good Amazon-related news Wednesday. By a 14-0 vote, the City Council signed off on a deal…
It took 20 years to kill the plan for a high-speed toll road on top of the river that runs through the center of the city. The reward for that long divisive struggle is a moment of relative calm when we can think about what actually should happen with the…
A Mesquite police officer who shot an unarmed man twice in the back last year will soon find out how much prison time he might serve, if any. Testimony concluded Tuesday in the trial of Derick Wiley, who is on trial for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by a…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, apparently, has an iron deficiency. Tuesday, the former state representative and current securities-fraud indictee decided to take a bite of the reddest of conservative red meat — the Pledge of Allegiance. Paxton is intervening in a lawsuit between a Houston-area high school student, India Landry,…
Monday night, a group of Washington D.C. activists let Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his wife Heidi Cruz know just how unhappy they were about the senator’s strong support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Protesters surrounded the Cruzes at Fiola, an upscale Italian restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue near the…
Six people showed up to a protest outside Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s Dallas office Monday, demanding he call for Brett Kavanaugh’s withdrawal as Supreme Court nominee. Six people too many according to the building’s disgruntled security, who asked the small group to move off the property. A minute later and…
Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall intends to significantly change Dallas Police Department procedures for police shootings and supports strengthening Dallas’ citizens review board, she said Monday. Hall’s new proposals, once effective, will require Dallas police involved in shootings to give a statement immediately. Under current DPD policy, officers are…
There is no denying that Michael Avenatti is an attention hound. He’s leveraged the notoriety of his biggest client, Stormy Daniels, into repeated media appearances, a huge following on social media and a probably pretend bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. Somehow, he’s now involved in the suspension…
Amber Guyger, the Dallas Police Department officer who shot and killed Botham Jean in Jean’s apartment a little over two weeks ago, has been fired. “Effective immediately, Amber Guyger is no longer with the Dallas Police Department. That decision and hearing was held this morning, at approximately 10 a.m.,” Hall…
One of the most intriguing sideshows of Texas’ mid-term elections is basically over before it opened, thanks to a special election upset in the Rio Grande Valley. Until Republican businessman Pete Flores beat former Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego in an emergency special election to fill the last two years-plus…
Last week I got an important fact wrong in a story about a troubled apartment complex in far West Dallas. I said the agency responsible for enforcing basic standards there over a period of years was the Dallas Housing Authority. That was not true. In fact, an entity in Austin…
To paraphrase former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke are who we thought they were. That was the biggest takeaway from the Senate candidates’ debate showdown at SMU on Friday night. Cruz displayed his patented blend of know-it-all smarminess, along with…
