So Mayor Laura Miller was able to muster a majority on the council to rescind the city’s longstanding policy on giving away federal “block grant” funds to political cronies. For as long as anybody can remember, community development block grants from Washington have been City Hall’s main source of steam…
Sometimes I bring a lot of bad news to you. Much of what I see makes me angry, and then I tell you about it, and maybe I make you angry too. So I owe you one. I need to tell you about something wonderful I watched at City Hall…
Dear Mexican, Why do you portray Mexicans as liberals when the majority are conservative? –Jorge P. Bush Dear Half-Wab, Week in and week out, “Ask a Mexican!” portrays Mexicans as perfect Republicans: homo-hating, Jew-baiting, Negro-bashing, chino-trashing religious fanatics who believe in free markets, self-determination and want to wipe Guatemalans off…
State Rep. Terry Keel’s office confirms that the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, which he heads, and the General Investigating and Ethics Committee have asked the State Bar of Texas to investigate actions by assistant Dallas City Attorney Jennifer Richie. She’s the city lawyer who was going after Dale Davenport,…
Hey, hey, an eviction party. Poor people got their stuff on the curb. Let’s all run over there and see if we can grab a pork chop. Everybody grabbed a chop two weeks ago when the Dallas City Council voted to kick the families out of the Timbercreek Apartments at…
The Dallas Morning News has started a blog just for its columnists. They’re calling it “Bold Types,” which is a very cool name. That makes the Morning News columnists sound like movie stars. I feel like a damn schlub. All I ever get to do is contribute to this blog,…
When people used to talk about cleaning up the neighborhood around Bachman Lake, it usually involved getting rid of Nick Rizos, proprietor of the long-gone, burned-out topless bar Caligula XXI on Northwest Highway. Now just look at how things have changed in that area: It’s Nick Rizos who’s cleaning up…
Well, the blogster microscope has really drilled down into the cellular structure of the story involving Mayor Laura Miller, her AMR Corp. stock and alleged conflict of interest, and Dallas Morning News reporter Dave Levinthal. Now we’ve got detailed accounts, via e-mail, from everyone involved–including Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport VP…
On the other hand, what’s good about Dallas? There has to be something cool. Otherwise, you know, let’s just go. I know, I know. I told you City Hall was going to hell in a hand basket. But did you ever stop and ask yourself, what exactly is a hand…
Dwayne Bray, Metro editor of The Dallas Morning News, called me yesterday in response to a call I had placed to Dave Levinthal, the News reporter who wrote a story over the weekend about Mayor Laura Miller and some stock she and her husband owned briefly in AMR Corp., parent…
Mayor Laura is pretty pissed off at The Dallas Morning News and reporter Dave Levinthal over his story Saturday about Mayor Miller, her husband and some stock they owned briefly in AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines. She says she gave Levinthal information showing she didn’t vote on any American…
Can I tell you the worst part in this whole exercise the Dallas City Council and the mayor are going through about adopting a so-called “comprehensive plan” for the city? Forget what’s in the plan. Whatever’s in it, it’s irrelevant. In fact, that’s the worst part. This deal about adopting…
The Dallas Morning News ran a story on Wednesday insisting that the Billy Bob Barnett entertainment complex originally slated for downtown Dallas may have found a home instead in suburban Irving, in the Las Colinas development. But I think the opposite is probably true. According to the people I’m talking…
Well, if you visit here, you can see what Smokey Joe Barton’s congressional committee did to the Internet today. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, of which Barton is chair, voted out a bill sponsored by him that would give phone companies all kinds of new rights to peddle…
How many people in those beautiful houses on deep lots along Forest Hills Boulevard near White Rock Lake want to see a Blockbuster Video store on their street? Who knows, maybe a tanning salon. Or a couple nice big apartment blocks. Because it could happen. Believe it. There’s a political…
Jim, Sharon Boyd’s posted a comment for you regarding your who’ll-replace-Laura item. But I thought I’d put it here too, to make it easier for you to respond…and so everyone else could play along at home. (And that means you too, Veletta Lill.) “You can’t possibly be serious that a…
So let’s keep trying to narrow our focus on the who-can-beat-Laura runway show. I have blogged in recent weeks that certain people in the business community are devoutly interested in finding a candidate who could knock Laura Miller out of the mayor’s job in the May 2007 election. I’m working…
Pretty interesting how the Dallas Half a Million Mexicans March is shaking out politically, now that it’s all in the past. All of the big-name Latino politicians are trying to step in front and take credit for having set it up. But I have been talking to people who were…
Well, I guess I need your help. I have two very different versions here of a story about the DART police. The first version is that they beat up, Maced and jailed Todd Lyon again for no good reason. He’s the guy I wrote about last year who said DART…
Out there in the heat of the night, the mayoral drums continue to throb. Who can beat Laura? Who-who-who? All kinds of men want to be mayor next time, but all kinds of men always want to be mayor. Just like they wanted to be Boy Scouts. The drums say…
There has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among folks who want to see Mayor Laura defeated next time around. Too many old white guys running, they say, none with enough name ID to cash a check, and all they’re going to do is split the opposition…
Not to be self-referential or anything in attempting to deal with the single most significant political event I have witnessed in the city of Dallas in almost three decades of reporting, but the next morning after last weekend’s monumental immigration march downtown I went to the mirror to see what…
