The city of Dallas has been grappling for years with how to better regulate boarding homes for the elderly, mentally ill and disabled , which are currently subject to very little oversight. About three weeks ago, the city council’s housing committee was told that licensing and regulating the homes could…
After soliciting a week’s worth of feedback from the luminaries on Facebook, Mayor Mike Rawlings, heretofore uncommitted on the controversial Trinity Toll Road, will hold a press conference at City Hall tomorrow “to deliver significant development” and also to “give his perspective on the Trinity River Corridor Project including the…
Damn! They almost got me to fall off the wagon again this morning. I came within a pubic hair’s breadth of reading an entire story about John Edwards’ sex life. That’s actually closer than just a hair’s breadth. Today’s story mentioned Lisa Blue, the Dallas lawyer and widow of Fred…
With Cinco de Mayo fast approaching, the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is scrambling to remind Americans that if you’re going to undermine a holiday designed to celebrate a culture’s heritage, you don’t have to just do it by getting hammered…
I was in Austin over the weekend, where I couldn’t help but notice 1,500 people holding a rally for women’s rights on the Capitol building’s south steps. It was one of dozens of events across the country Saturday organized by Unite Women to protest legislation affecting women’s health, abortion access,…
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate began debating the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which is largely backed by Senate Democrats, and discussing its Republican alternative, authored by Chuck Grassley of Iowa and our own Kay Bailey Hutchison. In preparation for that debate, Hutchison took to the Senate floor…
Damarcus Offord, the 20-year-old Dallas Independent School District trustee candidate, struck back at Mayor Mike Rawlings today, and in the course of one short document managed to heed his supporters’ call for a feisty outsider and confirm his detractors’ suspicion that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing. Rawlings, you’ll…
The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive It’s one of those interviews that probably would’ve worked better a half hour earlier on the Daily Show, since Colbert can’t quite accomplish what he wants to question-wise and still let his character shine. But it’s…
Much has been made of Mayor Mike Rawlings’ foray into Dallas Independent School District politics in recent months. Depending on who’s talking, his involvement is either the leadership and commitment this city needs to save its schools; another sign of the business community’s hostile takeover of those schools; or a…
Islam Karimov is the president of Uzbekistan; he’s also widely known as a brutal dictator accused of the systematic use of torture. His regime is charged with things like boiling political dissidents to death and forcibly sterilizing women. Now one of his daughters, who’s well-disliked in her own right, is…
A key battle was won this morning in what cable-news commenters might call the War on Sprinklers: The Dallas City Council just voted 13-2 to permanently limit sprinkler use, either by hose or by automatic system, to two days per week, in what can only be seen as a huge…
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Seems like only six months ago (because it was) that First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress was still casually referring to Mormonism as a “cult.” Back then, that word choice earned him a round of appearances on various TV news shows to explain himself…
For years, Dallas has struggled to regulate the city’s boarding houses, the places that many low-income mentally ill, disabled and elderly people call home. As we discussed in a recent cover story, right now, the city knows where about 330 of these homes are, and they’re inspected regularly for code…
In this last legislative session, the one that turned out to be pretty terrible for both abortion providers and family planning clinics, Arlington state Representative Bill Zedler had a dream. That dream, as we told you about at the time, was to require women and their doctors fill out and…
In the spirit of a Republican primary season marked by gleeful kneecapping, Grant Stinchfield, a former NBC 5 investigative reporter running for Congress, has discovered that his opponent, incumbent Kenny Marchant, claimed some endorsements from politicos who aren’t actually behind him in the race for the largely conservative, suburban 24th…
So often we think of undocumented immigrants as young, rootless men scaling border fences with plastic bags and gallon jugs of water slung over their shoulders. Truth is, people come here, set down roots and have kids. And when they get picked up by authorities, whether for a felony or…
The backdrop, the pageantry, the Fried Everything: There are plenty of reasons the folks at Texas and Oklahoma wouldn’t mind keeping the schools’ annual rivalry at the Cotton Bowl. But these are college football guys we’re talking about, so you can’t underestimate the Big R. The schools split $10 million…
Last week we told you about Cat Lafitte, the police officer fired for getting into a brawl with a Plano hospital orderly and bragging about it on Facebook. Lafitte filed a complaint with the city’s Ethics Advisory Commission, alleging that her superiors had created a hostile work environment and then…
As we mentioned Saturday, there’s a deal in the works to keep the annual Texas-OU orgy at Fair Park, but it hinges on the city’s willingness to raise $25 million to upgrade the Cotton Bowl. It feels like chump change, considering the history and economic impact of the event. But…
Before he left for the Land of a Thousand Blogs, Robert Wilonsky had a few stories about city officials’ desire — they would call it a need — to spend another $25 million or so sprucing up the Cotton Bowl, just four years after taxpayers coughed up $57 million for…
We keep hammering away at this same general point, but really: It’s been a terrible year for family planning providers in Texas. First the Legislature moved $73.6 million out of the state family-planning budget for the next two years . At the same time, they changed to a tiered funding…
“That’s right,” Cat Lafitte wrote in an email to the Observer about a month ago. “I’m the idiot Facebook cop.” If you don’t remember Cat Lafitte’s name, you may remember her actions: She was one of three police officers fired in June 2011 for violating department policy. Lafitte’s offenses, according…
