Politics & Government

Whatever one wants to call the thing that’s going on in presidential politics right now — the money primary, the silly season or the greatest trick Iowa and New Hampshire ever pulled — Texas finds itself squarely in the thick of things, apparently for the long haul. Julian Castro, the…

The final numbers are in and, stop us if you’ve heard this one before, Texas still had one of the United States’ worst voter participation rates in 2018, despite an 18 percentage point increase in voter participation over 2014. This November, 46.3 percent of Texas’ voting-eligible population cast ballots, according…

There aren’t many things, or people, capable of making Fox News apologize. The network is happy to let its on-air personalities and guests shill for conspiracies about the migrant caravan, Benghazi or Robert Mueller’s witch hunt. Thursday morning, however, the Observer’s favorite Republican, East Texas U.S House Rep. Louie Gohmert,…

Ever since he left the FBI in a scandalous uproar in 2008, John Guandolo has made a name for himself among right-wing conspiracy theorists, especially through his special “training” programs, which he gives to law enforcement throughout the country about the so-called dangers of Islam. This month, he’s set to…

If I ask a guy to his face if he’s running for mayor and he says no, can I still write a newspaper column saying I think he’s running for mayor anyway? Yes. And you know why? Because this is America. You don’t have to believe me, but if you…

The Dallas mayor’s race so far is intriguing, sure, but it’s also madness. One guy has been in the race from the beginning. Other unexpected people are showing up, tossing their hats in the ring. Another person whom everybody assumed would run has just now taken her hat out of…

Fifteen months after deciding that Dallas and its police department needed a study to figure out just how bad the department’s attrition and staffing woes are, the City Council signed off on funding for the survey Wednesday. The cash didn’t come without a fight over one of its sources —…

Let’s look at this just in terms of real life and normal business practice. In late November 2017, two months after Dallas police Chief U. Renee Hall arrived on the job from Detroit, detectives from the department’s intelligence unit “escorted” all of the detectives in the vice unit to their…

The 55th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas has slipped behind us already. The few reminiscence stories in the daily newspaper this year all seemed like reaches. That really is the miracle of time, is it not, that it can wear, wash and smooth away…

Recently departed Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto is running for mayor, he tells The Dallas Morning News’ Robert Wilonsky. Casto is now the second candidate to officially jump into the race, joining Dallas businessman Albert Black. Mike Ablon, a prominent real estate developer in the Design District and potential candidate, has…

Dallasites gathered at City Hall in solidarity with asylum seekers on Sunday as reports came in about hundreds of migrants from the Central American migrant caravan marching along the U.S.-Mexico border. More than 50 people gathered in the cold in response to a nationwide call for a day of action…

At a town hall in El Paso on Monday, Beto O’Rourke made his first public appearance since losing his Senate race to incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this month. Given the narrow, and high-profile nature of O’Rourke’s Senate defeat, one might’ve expected the soon-to-be former U.S. House representative to play…

Last week, almost lost in the dense postpartum coverage of the Amazon’s-not-coming-here story, I found what I thought was an utterly fascinating and infuriating vignette. It was something I should have guessed had happened. It was never a secret. It was something I normally would have assumed was happening. But…

About a dozen protesters gathered at Energy Transfer Partners’ office building in Dallas this week, the second anniversary of when police used non-lethal weapons against Dakota Access Pipeline protesters at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas. This time, the focus was on the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, which is being…

Another flyer from a white supremacist group was found in a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Highland Village near Lewisville last weekend. This time, the flyer, which read “Keep America American” and “Report Any and All Illegal Aliens; They are Criminals” along with a phone number for U.S. Immigration and…

Rickey Callahan will step aside in June rather than seek a fourth term on the Dallas City Council in next year’s municipal elections. Callahan announced his decision at a meeting of the Southeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, according to The Dallas Morning News’  Robert Wilonsky. Callahan, who did not respond…

Last week I found myself trying to explain Beto to a New Yorker. I didn’t do a good job. I do better with a day to think about it, a desk, a web browser and an editor than I do trying to talk on my feet. I was taken aback…

Earlier this week, as the post-midterm election haze receded and was quickly replaced by pre-primary gossip, we pondered the fate of Beto O’Rourke following his 2.5 point loss to Sen Ted Cruz. The Democrat’s next gig, we surmised, is probably going to be running for president, because many people seem to…

Dallas missed out on so much earlier this week when Amazon decide not to include the city in its HQ2 largess. Had the retail behemoth seen fit to shine its light on us, we could’ve had the thousands of jobs, billions in financial activity and voluminous orange signage that will…