Here at Unfair Park, we thought long and hard about how to cover the election. Should we devote our vast resources to covering the polls, putting our fingers to the pulse of the electorate? Perhaps we could relay impressionistic dispatches as political watchers reacted to the incoming election results. Or…
On this Election Day, I pause to consider Representative Ralph Hall, the man from Fate, Texas. Not long after he is re-elected — and he will be re-elected — he will turn 90. Why am I so confident? Because Hall is, if nothing else, a survivor after more than 30…
Turns out or resident English guy, Gavin Cleaver, who drenches himself in barbecue sauce and smoke for us over on City of Ate, is actually like a doctor. In politics. University trained and the author of a forthcoming book on political ethics. We did not know that … both that…
There are a lot of bad things you can say about the current state of political advertising. Campaigns ads to be loaded with unrelenting negativity and a wanton disregard for the truth, and they are often crafted with creepy specificity based on your demographics and what you buy online. They…
Like oh so many other things included in the Trinity River corridor project, the Texas Horse Park has not yet come to pass. The 500-acre equestrian center was supposed to have opened four years ago last month but was delayed when it became clear that city’s private-sector partner in the…
On Sunday, the Morning News’ Tanya Eiserer took a lengthy peek at DPD staffing trends; what she found can best be described as alarming. Over the past two years, the number of detectives assigned to work the city’s most pressing crimes has plummeted by 46 percent. The number of homicide…
At first blush, it wouldn’t seem that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have much in common. The former is an ex-KGB agent who, through a bizarre combination of dictatorial repression and sheer animal magnetism, has cemented his status as Russia’s de facto leader for life…
Yesterday, speaking before a gathering of pastors in Tampa, First Baptist’s Robert Jeffress stopped short of endorsing a particular candidate in the presidential race. Such overt political advocacy could risk his church’s tax-exempt status — not that he has let such concerns hinder him in the past. That doesn’t mean…
The Dallas County Republican Party dropped something of a bombshell Tuesday on the campaign of Robert Miklos, the Democrat challenging incumbent Ken Sheets for Texas House District 107, covering East Dallas and slivers of Mesquite and Garland. Party chairman Wade Emmert sent a phone message to voters — and an…
Republican state senator John Carona got himself into a bit of hot water with fellow conservatives last week, after he told Dallas Voice senior editor John Wright that he would support several LGBT rights bills during the upcoming legislative session. Those bills would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation…
Last week, as a City Council discussion of the don’t-throw-stuff-at-cyclists ordinance degenerated into a litany of members’ pet peeves about cyclists (we’re looking at you, Sandy Greyson), Angela Hunt became visibly frustrated. Hunt, who rides a bike herself and has been the council’s most vocal critic of City Hall’s hesitant…
Say you’re a Republican activist hoping to woo black voters, but you’re faced with the inconvenient truth that the opposing party elected the country’s first African American president. What do you do? You put the one African American figure who more iconic than Barack Obama on a billboard above his…
Eleven years ago, the City Council set aside an enormous, 3,700-acre tract of land surrounding Fair Park and put in place detailed zoning restrictions stipulating what types of homes and businesses could go where. It was an attempt to promote positive development and fight the economic decay that has taken…
If you were to put money on which Republican politician in Texas would publicly express support for gay rights, John Carona, the state senator from Dallas, would be a good bet. He’s always been about as pragmatic as Texas Republican come. But it was still a surprise when, earlier this…
Some relatively recent efforts to market the city of Dallas to would-be visitors may have mistakenly given the impression that we really don’t want them here. (How else to explain this?). But that’s not really the case. The city does want visitors, along with the money they drop at its…
On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, in a bit of international chest-pounding, sent a strongly worded letter to the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe threatening criminal charges if the group carried out a hinted-at plan to show up in Texas come November 6. Today,…
There’s been a lot of talk this election season about the specter of voter fraud, the idea that the polls will be flooded by illegal immigrants, household pets and dead people (all left-leaning constituencies), thereby cheapening real Americans’ votes. There has been relatively little concern expressed about the accuracy of…
In 2006, a developer announced plans to transform the century-old Butler Brothers building, the warehouse-turned-vacant eyesore across the street from City Hall, into condos. Then the economy tanked, the development went bankrupt and the historic structure was left to rot. That was where things stood until earlier this year when…
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is threatening to bring criminal charges against European election observers who may be monitoring the general election process in Texas. His always-entertaining Twitter feed suggests he would also be willing to throttle them with his bare hands. “UN poll watchers can’t interfere w/ Texas elections,”…
These days, it seems like debate watching isn’t such a social thing. We sit in living rooms with our family and friends, perhaps, or watch it alone and cast our thoughts out onto Facebook threads and Twitter feeds. So, what would it be like to watch it in a darkened…
First, let’s clear up once and for all the notion that cyclists in Dallas are renegade scofflaws whose disregard for traffic safety endangers the lives of the unfailingly law-abiding drivers everywhere: In the 89 car-on-bike accidents reported in the city so far this year, 58 percent were the fault of…
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has raised nearly $300 million, and it’s largely been with the help of a coterie of extremely wealthy, and extremely prolific donors. The top donor, of course, is Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. But the second biggest donor is a local…
