In the heat of the moment, while the country is heaping much-deserved blame upon Senator Ted Cruz for forcing a government shutdown and mourning the resulting loss of the nation’s premiere panda cam, it can be easy to lose sight of the hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file federal employees whose…
So far, the turn-Texas-blue group Battleground Texas’ primary public function has been to serve as a Kim Jong-un-like bogeyman for Republican politicians to campaign against. Leave it to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, desperately trying to convince us that he’s just as crazy as junior colleague Ted Cruz, to take this…
For the first time since the Clinton-Gingrich budget wars of 1995-96, hundreds of thousands of federal workers may soon be furloughed without pay, while others will be asked to work for free. The U.S. House of Representatives sent a bill to the U.S. Senate that would temporarily fund the government…
The cover story for Governor Rick Perry’s feud with California Governor Jerry Brown, his job-poaching trip to Missouri and his visit to a Maryland gun manufacturer the day after this month’s Navy Yard shooting, is that he’s bolstering the Texas economy by spreading the state’s low-tax gospel and wooing people…
Back when he was trying to become president, Rick Perry was ridiculed by Mitt Romney for Texas’ growing population of illegal immigrants. Romney had said in a debate that while California and Florida had “no increase in illegal immigration, Texas has had 60 percent increase in illegal immigrants.” Turns out,…
Ted Cruz did not make the cover of the October issue of GQ, an honor reserved for The Wire’s Idris Elba. That’s probably for the best. The appearance of Texas’ junior senator on the cover of a national magazine, this one not a political rag but one that defines itself…
You are a governor of a big state. Someone just shot and killed more than a dozen people in the nation’s capital. Question: Should you tour a gun factory the next day? If you’re Rick Perry, the clear answer is yes. As part of his job-poaching tour in Maryland, he…
When the city broke ground on the $50 million Buckeye Trail Commons housing development, everyone grabbed a shovel. Never mind that they were all wearing business suits; this was supposed to be the beginning of a renaissance in the Bonton neighborhood that had until recently been burdened with the notorious…
If the Texas Department of Transportation were a private company, it would have long ago plastered “Don’t Mess With Texas” all over T-shirts, belt buckles, chastity belts, firearms, and any other consumer good its marketing department could call to mind. As it is, the state agency has mostly limited the…
A droll old English butler once told the Dark Knight that “some men just want to watch the world burn.” The ends they pursue aren’t coherent. Their objectives are inscrutable to rational men. They sow chaos, because it is a faith unto itself. Alfred was talking about the Joker, but…
The bloodletting that marked Sarah Colmark’s first year as general manager of WRR 101.1, the city-run classical music station, has eased in recent months. The resulting decline in revenue, on the other hand, has not. According to a memo sent to City Council members on August 30, WRR is expected…
The Texas Retailers Associations and its allies in the fight against Dallas’ proposed ban on plastic and other single-use bags have succeeded in stalling any action for the foreseeable future. So, even though Councilman Dwaine Caraway swears to us that the measure will ultimately pass, they’ve won at least a…
Remember all of the awesome details from the 2008 Democratic primary race in Texas between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? No? Weird. Well the short version of that story is that Clinton won Texas. The longer version is that a businessman from Washington D.C spent hundreds of thousands of secret…
Craig James, former SMU running back and failed U.S. Senate candidate, has managed to alienate an impressively broad swath of humanity, including but not limited to Texas Tech fans, sex workers, the entire LGBT community, Republican primary voters, and the executives of now two major sports networks. The second of…
The North Texas Tollway Authority has had trouble in recent years of actually making drivers pay to use its roads. Hence the tens of millions of dollars in unpaid tolls and fees it says it’s owed, hence its infamous list of the most egregious offenders, hence the lawsuits it began…
This past legislative session, billionaire Elon Musk’s push for a new law allowing electric-car maker Tesla Motors to bypass car dealers and sell directly to consumers crashed and burned. Which wasn’t a surprise. The state’s car dealers have a long, proud history of plying legislators with campaign cash and gifts…
My personal traffic-signal nemesis is where Garland Road and Gaston Avenue meet at the southern tip of White Rock Lake. Woe to the southbound driver who, having hit the intersection at 6:30 p.m., and having just learned that the squirming 4-year-old in the back seat has to go potty RIGHT…
Dallas will never be able to completely escape blame for killing JFK. There’s simply too much documentation of how reactionary hate-mongering gripped the city. Esquire’s Charlie Pierce dredged up one of those documents yesterday, a leaflet distributed in the streets of Dallas on the day of the assassination. Except that…
The way Railroad Commission Chairman and Texas Attorney General candidate Barry Smitherman tells it, the aim of his 10 years of public service was not brazen tub-thumping for the industry he regulates in order to shore up deep-pocketed benefactors for his political aspirations. It’s only ever been about readying Texas…
Barry Smitherman recently leapt off the political springboard that is the Texas Railroad Commission and dove into the attorney general’s race. Heretofore, he has focused his campaign primarily on extolling the virtues of hydraulic fracturing, firearms and suing the Obama administration. Yet Smitherman isn’t just another Greg Abbott wannabe mindlessly…
Last we heard from Craig James, he was groveling for cash to pay off the debt racked up during his ill-conceived U.S. Senate campaign and denying that he killed five hookers. That was more than a year ago. Then, on Friday, Fox Sports Southwest reminded the world of James’ existence…
It’s been eight months since the Dallas City Council passed new rules forcing drivers to be nice to cyclists. It’s been six months since the short-lived, ill-conceived public education campaign. It’s been almost a year since some asshole shot up me and my bike with paintballs. So, what has become…
