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This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in news from DFW, we have a grab bag. Who’s in and out in the Democratic primary for CD-32; Collin County is split on voting machines and Ken Paxton’s impeachment; the Joppa asphalt plant is finally closing; HEB expands into Dallas, specifically South Dallas; various shenanigans in Fort Worth around race and LGBTQ diversity; your regular dose of Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow; and last but not least, barbecue feuding and Dallas’ diversity of donuts.

• Two Texas lawmakers to launch campaigns to replace Colin Allred in Congress. It’s Rhetta Bowers and Julie Johnson, both state representatives in the DFW area. I don’t know much about Bowers (Garland & Mesquite) but I hear good things about Johnson (Farmer’s Branch). Already in the race is local surgeon Brian Williams, and per the DMN, CM Adam Bazaldua (D7, South Dallas) is also considering joining the race. There’s also an effort to recruit Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia (D4, west Dallas and Grand Prairie). Mayor Eric Johnson says he’s not running. As noted by our host, local civil rights attorney Justin Moore has also put his hat in the ring.
• This story about Collin County renewing its contract with its voting machine company is really all about how a lot of Republicans in Collin County don’t trust election results even when they elect Republicans. One can only imagine what will happen when a Democrat is elected to a county office.
• Related: as Charles noted earlier this week, Ken Paxton’s support in Collin County is getting shaky. Here’s a local story covering the same ground by the same reporter covering the voting machines. Unsurprisingly, she draws a link between these two issues splintering the Republican party in the area.
• Asphalt company president says production in Joppa to stop June 26. This is great news for a long-suffering Black community in South Dallas. Related, here’s an explainer on how the asphalt plant got into Joppa in the first place and how the TCEQ has consistently failed Joppa and other communities looking for clean air to breathe: Texas asphalt plants operate with limited oversight — and communities struggle with pollution.
• Good news from South Dallas: HEB is opening two Joe V’s Smart Shop stores in the next two years. Spouse and I looked into the part of South Dallas that’s just under I-30 when we planned our move to Dallas and it’s a grocery desert down there. These stores can’t come online soon enough.
• Following up on a previous story: O.D. Wyatt principal returns to campus following controversy over Facebook post. This is the Fort Worth high school where teachers dressed like students in ankle monitors and a counselor posted photos with captions describing the school as “ghetto”. The district and the principal are understandably trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug at this point, but at least they’re working on social media guidelines for the staff.
• Also in Fort Worth, there’s a small storm breaking about a local market that kicked a queer vendor out. As the Star-Telegram notes, the market is on murky legal ground federally, but the vendor would have to sue and state courts would probably rule against her. Her strategy of calling out the market on social media is probably going to be more successful.
• Speaking of homophobia in Fort Worth: Mayor Mattie Parker stands by her decision to remove an LGBTQ badge from the mayor’s reading program. She got complaints and removed the badge but is open to “continuous conversation”. In a silver lining, a council member is running a separate Pride reading challenge now that the mayor has backed off from her own pride.
• In this week’s edition of Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, two notes. First, Harlan Crow continues to refuse to talk to the Senate about his gifts to Clarence Thomas on the grounds that he doesn’t have to just because the Judiciary Committee says so, so there! Meanwhile, the annual financial disclosure forms for Supreme Court justices are in. Unsurprisingly, Clarence Thomas received an extension (so did Alito)
• From Paschal High to Texas interim attorney general: John Scott learned to ‘stick with it’. Puff piece about the local roots of our interim AG in Fort Worth.
• There’s nothing more Texan than a barbecue feud and we have one going in the Metroplex: Lockhart Smokehouse vs Crossbuck BBQ, founded by their former pitmaster in 2022 after Lockhart fired him in 2020. As is usual in these things, it’s hard to tell from the filings and the feelings who’s in the wrong, but probably nobody is going to come out smelling like roses. As for the food, I’ve eaten Lockhart at their downtown Plano location and I’d eat there again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. I haven’t tried Crossbuck (yet).
• In case you didn’t know, June 2 was National Donut Day and the Washington Post says Dallas is one of the donut capitals of the United States. We have “the best balance of doughnut density and diversity” with both a lot of national chains and craft shops. Providence has the greatest density and Salt Lake City has the most unique shops. Here’s the history of National Donut Day in case you feel a craving.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

In DFW-area news this week, we’ll be talking about Ken Paxton, who’s local to Collin County, updates on the Dallas ransomware problem, trouble in the Dallas County juvenile department, and the outlet mall in Allen reopens. Plus, two baby giraffes!

We’ll start with a nice backgrounder from our local NPR station about Paxton’s history, his embrace of the Tea Party, and his shady financial dealings, much of which will be old news to long-time readers of this blog. Also worth a review is this Texas Observer piece from 2018 that explains how Paxton had managed to avoid trial until then. The short version is that Paxton is tight with the reactionary Republican cabal that runs Collin County, including DA Greg Willis (whom you may remember for recently settling a sexual harassment lawsuit). And as you also probably know, Paxton’s wife Angela is a state senator, having been elected for a second term to her husband’s old seat, and will be a juror in her husband’s trial unless she recuses herself.

Meanwhile, in other DFW connections to this case, here’s a piece about Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, who was a member of the House General Investigating Committee that brought the charges. Geren will also serve as an impeachment manager in the Senate, as part of a committee of twelve representatives including Jeff Leach of Plano and Morgan Meyer of University Park (my own representative). As noted in the Fort Worth Report article, Paxton threatened the members of the committee. Given that, as noted in the Observer article I linked above, Paxton’s friends at Empower Texas primaried out the judge who appointed the special prosecutors in his original case, this may not be an entirely idle threat. The backlash against Paxton’s impeachment has already started: the Collin County GOP already claims that Paxton wasn’t impeached properly(Archive link). And of course the former President had a lot to say about the impeachment as well. Expect more of this kind of talk between now and the trial.

The DMN has an analysis of how the Paxton case points to divisions inside the Republican party in Texas in 2024 (Archive link) and as the Washington Post link about TFG demonstrates, removing Paxton has national implications. It hasn’t been a major point in the impeachment discussion, but Paxton is a big defender of the Big Lie (relevant older stories at Mother Jones & the Texas Tribune) and in case you want to hear about his work making it harder to vote in Texas from the man himself, here’s a minute of Paxton talking to Steve Bannon (youtube) where he says if he hadn’t been able to block mail-in ballots, Trump would have lost Texas in 2020. Personally, I don’t believe that, but it’s key to understanding why TFG is pro-Paxton.

As an aside, related to all this discussion of voting and suppression is HB 1243, which makes illegal voting a felony again and is on Greg Abbott’s desk for signature.

From Dallas, which is the last surviving redoubt of Business Republicans of any size and is also in spitting distance of the Collin County crew, it’s easy to see how the impeachment and trial will only exacerbate the divisions between the Business/Country Club folks and the True Believers/Trumpists. Paxton has looked unstoppable for years and everyone who’s taken a shot at him has missed. Something that happened in this session (possibly 3.3 million somethings) made the Business Republicans decide it was finally worth it to take Paxton on; part of that had to be signals that statewide leadership was willing to let Paxton go.

Or maybe it’s all some twelve-dimensional chess move by Dan Patrick to take down Greg Abbott by getting him to back impeachment while Patrick saves Paxton in the Senate. No matter what it is, I’m going to be sitting back with popcorn watching angry Republicans going at each other over Ken Paxton all summer.

In other news:

• The latest on the ransomware attack from the DMN: Ransomware attack: Dallas City Council told to keep quiet four weeks later (Archive link). As a Dallas taxpayer, I feel a bit like a mushroom. They’re keeping me in the dark and feeding me crap. Related: This D Magazine piece that Charles has already pointed to about what we know about the attack.
• Dallas County juvenile department sues commissioners over detention records. Put a pin in this because we’ll be coming back to it. It’s a complicated case but the gist is that the juvenile department, including the juvenile justice system, is doing a terrible job, and the commissioners want answers that the juvenile department doesn’t want to give.
• A reminder from the DMN: Early voting for the June 10 runoff started May 30 and will continue through June 6. If your area has a runoff, please get out and vote!
• Refugee Services of Texas permanently closing after four decades. They can’t raise enough money to keep going and there are questions about some of their spending. Other resettlement agencies will take over most of their case work but their human trafficking program will close.
• Following the recent mass shooting in Allen, Allen Premium Outlets reopened on Wednesday. Here’s a DMN story about a family-owned restaurant affected by the shooting and its fallout as they reopen (Archive link).
• This is a piece of news I’ve been waiting for for a while: A Historic Civil Rights Home Reopens its Doors in Fair Park. The home belonged to Juanita Craft, whom I knew nothing about before I moved to Dallas. She was a major player in civil rights history, hosting Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King, Jr. in her home during her 50-year career with the NAACP. She also led the charge to desegregate the State Fair and successfully sued UT’s law school and North Texas State University over segregation policy. Click through and read up on her for some inspiration about how to make the world a better place.
• The Alamo Drafthouse in Las Colinas has been named for John Carpenter. It’s on John Carpenter Freeway, named for a local industrialist who helped establish Big Bend.
• Last, but definitely not least, in baby giraffe news: Meet Maple! Fossil Rim Giraffe Calf Gets Her Name. She was named by public vote after a marking that looks like a maple leaf. Along similar lines: Meet Kora: Dallas Zoo announces name of its newest baby giraffe (Archive link). Kora was named after Kora National Park in Kenya. I foresee some zoo and wildlife park time in my future this summer.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in DFW-area news, another smorgasbord, including the ongoing effects of the ransomware attacks, runoff elections, the aftermath of the Allen mall shooting, local fallout from Lege decisions, Wyatt HS in FWISD has a racism problem, Frisco ISD has civil rights problems, Harlan Crow keeps talking, an I-345 update, some great museum exhibits in the area this summer, and Tina Turner’s (RIP) connection to Dallas.

• As Charles noted at the weekend, the City of Dallas is in a not-great place with the Royal ransomware situation. While no news of an information release has surfaced this week, things are still a mess. The DMN has an explainer (Archive link) for anyone who needs to catch up on the current situation. The municipal courts will be closed through May 30 and, she complained, there’s still no update on the library situation.
• In the unrelated payroll problems in Dallas County, we can add election workers (Archive list) to the list of un(der)paid workers. Apparently they managed pay for Election Day workers by giving them debit cards.
• Speaking of elections: What you need to know about runoff elections in Fort Worth and Tarrant County. There’s also a runoff for District 3 of the Dallas City Council and Dallas ISD’s District 2. Early voting begins May 30, continuing through June 6, and Election Day is June 10.
• Meanwhile, in Allen, the outlet mall will reopen May 31, after the Memorial Day shopping weekend. Individual stores may take longer to reopen. Meanwhile, the DMN has an explainer about the shooter (Archive link). KERA adds the ugly detail that he signed his name on a license application with a Nazi lightning bolt SS. DPS, which received this application to become a security guard, passed the background check, received a license, and renewed it, which suggests DPS needs to reconsider its procedures.
• Dr. Ximena Lopez, formerly of GENECIS, the clinic caring for trans youth at UTSW/Children’s Medical Center here in Dallas, is closing her practice and leaving Texas at the end of July. The DMN article on Dr. Lopez (Archive link) notes that this should not affect her suit against her employers. I wish Dr. Lopez well, but as a Texan with trans friends, I’m not surprised she’s leaving. Most of my adult trans friends or friends with trans kids are either already gone or on their way out. I wish Dr. Lopez’s persecutors a heaping helping of justice.
• In Lege news, Greg Abbott signed the ankle monitor bill (Archive link) sponsored by local Rep Rafael Anchía. The bill was inspired by the murder of hospital workers at Dallas Methodist Hospital by a parolee who had cut off his ankle monitor. Violence against hospital workers isn’t just a Texas problem, as noted in this NPR piece about hospital police forces. As always, though, the fact that Texas lets anybody and their dog buy any kind of gun is a big piece of the problem that won’t be solved until we throw the gun gropers out of office.
• Possibly related to the immediately preceding couple of items: UNT Health Science Center launches new nursing college to address a North Texas shortage. We need more health care professionals of all sorts, but we also need less political interference in medical care and fewer jackasses shooting up places where nurses work, on top of the general troubles health care workers have had to deal with since 2020.
• Fort Worth ISD has been dealing with a scandal at Wyatt HS where teachers participated in a “dress like students” day and somene posted some frankly racist social media pictures of teachers as “ghetto” students. The principal is currently holding the bag with the board, but the counselor who posted the pictures and comments was still on campus. The board won’t have the matter resolved until after the last day of school, which was May 25.
• Here’s a primer on Frisco ISD’s civil rights investigations including the Marvin Lowe matter. Frisco ISD would like you to know there are only seven open investigations with the DOE, not even the most locally, because there are eight in Carrollton.
• Just possibly related: Arlington ISD’s Lone Finalist for Superintendent Declines Offer, Decides to Stay in G-PISD. Apparently it was a shock to Arlington officials, who found out on social media and through gossip. Honestly, if I were an educator with a good job, in this case near Corpus, and someone tried to hire me to run a north Texas ISD with the hassles we have, I’d pass too.
• I-345 Is Dead, Long Live I-345. City Council has voted to trench I-345, the elevated freeway that connects I-45 from Houston with US 75/Central Expressway. I picked the D Magazine link on this story because it gets deeply into Dallas’ highway history and the community and financial issues around it, and also because it’s so frank in acknowledging that DOT’s priorities are the Governor’s priorities. If we want change around I-345, and I do, we have to vote the Governor out.
• Too bad so sad: Tarrant County’s immigration enforcement program hits pause due to short staffing, ICE says.
• This week’s edition of Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas involves Harlan Crow telling Senate Democrats they can’t make him talk about his gifts to Clarence Thomas, which I hope they subpoena his butt and prove him wrong on. For analysis of the letter, I refer you to Chris Geidner’s Law Dork, which is quite aggressive. Also, as linked in the Guardian article, Harlan Crow’s tour of middlebrow media outlets to convince them he’s just a normal guy stops at the Atlantic (Archive link) this week, where he talks with Graeme Wood, who declared Crow was not a Nazi in the early days of the scandal. The Atlantic piece is actually worth reading because Wood, who was raised in Dallas, talks about how Crow’s life and response to the accusations around Thomas fit into the Dallas paradigm.
• Unsurprising economic news about homebuyers in Dallas: In 2021, the typical Texas homebuyer was 47. A year later, they were much older (Archive link). The next year, it was 56. The share of first-time homebuyers dropped from 32% to 24%, driven by prices and mortgage rates. Also, related, white folks really dominated the market, so click through and look at the infographics.
• In a piece of positive Lege news, Governor Abbott has signed legislation designating a 1.6-mile stretch of Royal Lane in northwest Dallas as “Koreatown” (Archive link). This is another bill sponsored by Rep. Anchía, so congratulations to him.
• Here are some cultural events that may interest DFW folks: The Oak Cliff Film Festival Announces Its 2023 Lineup (I’m planning to see the 1925 silent film The Lost World with live score by the Alloy Orchestra); At the Crow Museum, simple functions lead to stunning forms from Japanese artisans (Crow in this case being Trammell, not his son Harlan); ‘Multiple Exposures’ exhibition at Amon Carter showcases Christina Fernandez’s best works (Archive link); Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art at the Kimbell in Fort Worth. The Amon Carter, the Crow Museum, and the general collection at the Kimbell are all free (the Maya exhibition is fee-entry).
• Last but not least: Dallas is mourning Tina Turner (RIP) the way it does best: by remembering her local connection, which is that she fled from her husband Ike, a notorious abuser, here in Dallas and ran across I-30 to get away from him. Apparently the hotel where she ended up has become a shrine for mourners, which is both a little creepy and very Dallas.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in DFW-area news, we have a smorgasbord: follow-up on the Allen mall shooting, election cleanup, more on Thomas and Crow, MUD shenanigans, and computer snafus and more. Plus, Dallas gets lots of good sports news, art, music, and HEB BBQ.

The first few items in this roundup are about mass shooting/gun violence and intimate partner violence and murder. Please read and click through with care.

More on the Allen mall shooting: responses from local media are mostly about whether or not the shooting was a hate crime and what the political implications were. Typical of the former is Machismo, misogyny, misinformation: Why some Hispanic people become white supremacists (Archive link with a slightly different headline archived a few days ago) and Was the Allen Mass Shooting a Hate Crime? Authorities Still Haven’t Said. The question of whether it’s a hate crime is tied to several acknowledged anti-Asian hate crimes, including shootings in Dallas’s Koreatown, in the last few years.

Typical of the latter is Can politicians opposing gun reforms rely on Collin County voters after a mass shooting? The most important thing about this shooting is not whether or not Democrats can make hay out of it, but at the same time, if we want more than thoughts and prayers issued after this shooting the way we got after Uvalde and El Paso and … (here’s a timeline of the last 14 years in mass shootings here in Texas), we are going to have to vote the bastards out. And in Texas, they’re Republicans.

One last story that I was personally pretty bothered by is the Allen PD’s callout of one first-person account of the shooting as false. The story was gruesome and you hate to think that someone would make those details up for social media clout. You also hate to think that the cops would harass someone who helped at the scene of a mass shooting. Yet, here we are.

In other news:

• Last week, Gabriella Gonzalez was murdered in Oak Cliff (Archive), apparently by her (ex) boyfriend, who was angry that she had traveled to Colorado for an abortion. Weeks before her death, she had gone to DPD for help but even after her April 14 affidavit, in which Gonzalez described an attempt to strangle her (which according to this relates story, is a leading indicator of increasing violence), no charges were filed until after the murder. These links also discuss the ability of abusers to get guns despite laws meant to prevent that and how our legal system in Texas and in Dallas specifically fails to protect people from intimate partner violence. I honestly believe that the risk and threat of violence is part and parcel of our current Republican government’s plan to discourage abortion and restore a hierarchical world in which men control women. The deaths of women like Gabriella Gonzalez are just collateral damage. If we want to prevent more cases like Gonzalez’s, we have to vote the bastards out.
• Election cleanup: apparently an election site at a middle school in (Black) southeast Dallas turned away voters for hours (Archive link); ; the DMN editorial board celebrates (Archive link) the rejection of reactionary politics in suburban Dallas school boards; and Dallas voters dissatisfied with Eric Johnson’s unopposed march to re-election as mayor wrote in Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, and Willie Nelson along with almost 2700 other names.
• I know Charles is also covering both of these stories as well, but I’m noting them: His sights are on Ted Cruz, but Colin Allred likely to face primary challenge (Archive link) and His profile grew after Dallas police ambush; now this trauma surgeon running for Congress (Archive link). Dr. Williams is running as a Democrat, which the DMN doesn’t mention. He has a campaign website and a book coming out. I’ll be keeping an eye on him.
• In this week’s update on Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow, apparently Sen. Wyden is serious about getting Crow to testify about all those gifts; in testimony before the Judiciary Committee, a federal judge says ethics complaints against Thomas were mishandled in 2011 and 2012 (Archive link); and it turns out one of the Fifth Circuit justices who heard the mifeprestone case earlier this week was sworn in in Harlan Crow’s library in 2018, with Thomas present.
• Another Dallas-connected story about rich people’s fingers in government business: “Dallas hotel magnate and generous supporter of conservative political causes” Monty Bennett used his MUD for his ranch to help a fellow landowner protect his land from eminent domain for a wastewater pipeline. Bonus Dallas link: Congressman Lance Gooden, who used to represent me until the most recent round of redistricting, helped Bennett by sponsoring the bill to create the MUD. Read the whole story; it’s ugly business.
• Here’s a Guardian intro to Jasmine Crockett of CD-30, which is centered on South Dallas but now extends into Fort Worth. She was Eddie Bernice Johnson’s handpicked successor and looks like she’s ready to make a mark of her own in Congress.
• Hundreds of Dallas County attorneys say they’ve not been paid in 6 weeks in payroll chaos (Archive link.) This outage also includes expert witnesses and court staff like recorders and is unrelated to the ransomware attack on the city. Apparently a payroll software update in April is the culprit.
• Meanwhile, the City of Dallas ransomware saga rolls on and the library definitely wants us to keep our library books (Archive link). Dallas is fine-free and it’s not like they can figure out where all these books go without their computer systems, which may be down for several more weeks or months. Overdrive and hoopla, their ebook services, are still working; I’m still able to check things in and out.
• Here’s a really ugly ProPublica story about a company I didn’t know was from Dallas: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”. Coproduced with the DMN.
• DFW airport is getting a sixth terminal (Archive link). IAH better get busy or it’ll fall behind!
• In DFW sports news: The Dallas Stars advance to the Western Conference finals complete with cheesy headline from the DMN (Archive link); The Arlington Renegades won the XFL championship; and the Mavericks kept their pick (Archive link) in the June NBA draft lottery.
• Important questions: Is H-E-B’s True Texas BBQ still the ‘best barbecue chain in Texas’? Clearly we need to pick some up on our next HEB run and decide for ourselves.
• How to Build an Art Town. Harper’s Bazaar looks at Dallas’ art scene through the lens of the Dallas Art Fair. Somewhat related, or at least the Dallas Observer’s coverage springboards off the Art Fair, is this South African art exhibit at the African American Museum in Fair Park, which is on my list to check out now.
• Music for Texas state parks hits the airwaves. I am here for the upcoming “Texas Wild” album and if you’re at all interested in Texas music, you too should check it out.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in DFW-area news, two big stories: the mass shooting in Allen and local election results. Plus, updates on the Dallas ransomware situation, Tarrant County jail troubles go to the feds, Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow, robotaxis, a great exhibit at an area museum, and mayo beer.

First, local elections: The city of Dallas had all fourteen seats and the mayor’s office on the ballot. All the incumbents (the mayor and 12 council members) won (Archive link), with only one of the open seats proceeding to a runoff. In Fort Worth, per Fort Worth Report, Mayor Parker and most of the council also cruised to re-election and there’s going to be a runoff in D11, the new Hispanic-opportunity district. Arlington kept its mayor and the majority of its council and approved bonds for streets and parks. Denton recalled one council member (archive link), presumably over ignoring the voters on marijuana decriminalization. Local blogger Mark Steger sums up the Richardson elections; Richardson also kept most incumbents and passed a bond issue for additional funds to replace their city hall, which was due for refurbishment before it burned down.

In school board elections, the DMN summarizes results in Collin and Dallas counties (Archive link), which mostly favored incumbents, which was good news after last year’s beatdown by reactionary Patriot Mobile candidates and the like. Frankin Strong has a good summary of statewide news including where anti-reactionary forces failed in North Texas: Keller ISD and Grapevine-Colleyville ISD.

I’m not a fan of Dallas mayor Eric Johnson, but he was the only choice on the ballot. My council member (D10) was term-limited out and I live in a part of Dallas that’s a stronghold of the business Republican, so it’s unsurprising that even the candidate I voted for was a little conservative for my taste. He lost, though, and the somewhat more conservative but at least not utterly reactionary Kathy Stewart will be my council member. Meanwhile in RISD elections, the incumbent in at-large place 6 survived a reactionary challenger, which I consider enough of a victory to make up for both D10 and the mayor.

But at least I voted! A lot of people don’t, and the complaints are legion (Dallas Observer; DMN; Fort Worth Report). Looks like the numbers in the cities are about 10% of registered voters, which as that Dallas Observer story demonstrates, means hundreds of votes are deciding council seat elections. We could solve part of this problem by moving municipal elections to November, when more people vote. But since the people who could move elections keep getting re-elected in May, that’s not likely to happen.

The second big story this week is the mass shooting at the outlet mall in Allen. I assume anyone interested enough to follow Charles’ blog is aware of the outlines of the story, but here’s the DMN update on the story from the 10th (Archive link). Unsurprisingly the killer had a history of “mental illness” and his guns were legally acquired. He was wearing a patch signifying right-wing extremist views and his social media was full of Hitler love and related opinions. And half the victims were of Asian descent (Archive link). Everybody and their dog is upset with Texas Republicans who won’t do anything about guns, but of course, as Charles noted yesterday, we can’t even get the Lege to pass a bill to keep from selling assault weapons to young folks who can’t drink legally in the wake of a mass murder.

Meanwhile, since the mass shooting in Allen, we also saw an apparent attack on folks outside a migrant shelter in Brownsville that killed eight people. And in North Texas we had a shooting on a DART train that killed one and injured two (Archive link). That was just Sunday. Plus, of course, the inevitable copycat threats.

Andrea Grimes has the best take on the whole thing: “If I die by gun violence, don’t pray for me. Politicize me.”

In other news:

• Charles has covered recent news on the ransomware attack on the City of Dallas. Today the city says it may take months to clean all city computers (Archive link). I’m glad our library is fine-free and I have a stack of books to work through before the IT folks get to it.
• Here’s a little DMN coverage of the upcoming Senate race between hometown boy Colin Allred and Ted Cruz (Archive link). Most of this is conventional wisdom about how much it sucks to be a Democrat in Texas but I think the DMN’s political reporter may be on to something about the difference between Allred and Beto. I appreciate Beto’s positive campaigning, but he didn’t hit Cruz hard enough. Allred has come out of the gate saying what we all know is true: Cruz is awful and he’s in it for himself. Allred has a fine line to walk being positive vs bringing Cruz’s many chickens home to roost; his opening video did a great job of emphasizing both points. While Allred isn’t my congressional rep (I wish) his local profile suggests he has a good chance of threading that needle.
• Again as Charles noted, notorious sex pest Bryan Slaton was expelled from the Lege Tuesday. I hope we’ve seen the last of him, but I doubt it. I’ll be keeping an eye out for a new election in Slaton’s district, not to mention seeing who scoops him up as a lobbyist. My condolences to his former constituents, except the ones who voted for him.
• Speaking of hater Republicans, the Tarrant County Judge is going after a bar that hosted an all-ages drag show. He’s asked the Comptroller to rule whether Tulips, a venue I haven’t been to yet but one that’s hosted a number of concerts I’m interested in, is operating as an unlicensed sexually-oriented business. This is the same county judge who ran off a nationally-acclaimed election administrator because he’s an election denier, so take his suggestions with a mountain of salt.
• In economic news, the Dallas Fed says Texas is losing its cheap housing advantage. Having bought two houses and sold one in the state in the last fifteen years, I’m not surprised. The price of our (free standing) new construction condo in Austin went up by half in the eight years we owned it and its current estimated value is about another half again of what we sold it for; and our house in Dallas has gone up about half in estimated value in the not-quite five years since we bought it. Near southeast Austin was hot because of the Oracle facility but I can’t tell you why northeast Dallas is this hot.
• I’ve been watching this story for a while but it’s now coming to a head: Fort Worth activists work with Texas A&M to seek federal investigation of Tarrant County Jail. In particular this request was driven by the county’s handling of the case of Robert Miller, where the county supposedly hired a third-party expert to review the autopsy after he died in jail and the Star-Telegram questioned the results. No autopsy report was sent to the expert and nothing happened. Unsurprisingly, the Sheriff’s office did not respond to information requests for the linked story. Read the whole thing; it’s pretty grim. I’ll continue to keep an eye on this case and hope for some forward motion from the feds.
• Robotaxis are coming: GM’s Cruise to Expand Robotaxi Service to Dallas and Houston (Archive link). “Cruise initially will offer rides to employees and have a safety driver, then open it to the public once the service is established. When the cars are truly driverless, Cruise will charge fares, a spokeswoman said.” More for somebody else.
• You knew there was going to be a Clarence Thomas & Harlan Crow update. So here’s the ProPublica story about Harlan Crow paying for Thomas’ great-nephew, whom Thomas raised, at expensive private schools and laying out about $100,000. Crow, meanwhile, has told the Senate panel looking into the apparent corruption involved in his gifts to Thomas to to kiss off (Archive link). For commentary on all this, I recommend Dahlia Lithwick and Chris Geidner. Also, in case you can’t get enough of Clarence and Ginni Thomas, PBS has a Frontline documentary out on them.
• In cultural news: Nearly 100 works make for a once-in-a-generation show of Mayan art at the Kimbell. The Kimbell is the best museum in the DFW metroplex and one of the best in the state despite its small size. This is going to be a fantastic show; I look forward to seeing it. If any of you reading this will be in the area this summer, check it out. The Kimbell is worth a visit even without a blockbuster exhibit and the general collection is free.
• We Try Martin House’s Mayonnaise Beer … ‘for Some Reason’. I like mayo on my sandwiches, but … no.
• Sad news from the zoo: Dallas Zoo elephant dies. Ajabu was seven and died of a viral infection that is often fatal. There’s no reason to suspect Ajabu’s illness was related to any of the zoo’s problems earlier this year.
• Last, but not least, for my fellow Gen Xers: Frankie Goes to Hollywood biopic Relax in the works. I’m here for it.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in DFW-area news, some big stories: Colin Allred is running against Ted Cruz, the City of Dallas is under a ransomware attack, and of course, more Harlan Crow & Clarence Thomas news. Plus various election items, Greg Abbott’s dog-whistles about the Cleveland mass shooting, whether it’s worth it for a band to play SXSW, and an exhibit about Bass Reeves in Fort Worth.

Also: don’t forget to vote tomorrow in the May elections in your area, Texans! I voted early but if you didn’t, polls are open Saturday. Please read up on your local elections and vote, particularly in your school board elections. That’s one of the ways extremists funnel their people into politics and their cases into the legal system.

First, as you know, Colin Allred’s possible Senate run has been in the news for a while now. If you haven’t seen his opening pitch video yet, you should spend those three minutes. It’s both wholesome and a bit of a firecracker (not hard; Ted Cruz is an easy target). The announcement story in the DMN is nothing you haven’t already read, but Ted Cruz’s response is kind of funny (Archive link). We all know Cruz is full of ego, but I think most readers of this blog can think of good reasons why Allred might not spend time getting to know Cruz in person.

The Dallas Observer has a good roundup of local and state reaction. The real news from Dallas, though, will come in the reshuffle of candidates now that Allred’s seat (CD-32) is open. The DMN has some potentials on the Democratic side lined up (Archive link) and they’re collectively a good group. I hope to see a solid reshuffle upwards out of this and wish Allred and whoever wins the Dem nomination for CD-32 the best.

Note: I’m not in Allred’s district though I probably would be in a world where Dallas wasn’t gerrymandered so thoroughly. Instead I was in CD-5 (Lance Gooden of Terrell) until the recent reshuffle and now Beth Van Duyne of Denton and a bunch of other mid-DFW suburbs (CD-24) is my representative, even though I live in northeast Dallas. The only one of my electeds mentioned in the DMN’s potential shuffle is my state Senator, Nathan Johnson, who’s not running.

Next up, in Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, ProPublica has dropped another bomb: Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. The kid is Thomas’ grand-nephew whom he and his wife are raising. The one year we know the cost of for sure was $6,000/month. Propublica’s sources indicate that if Crow was paying for all four high school years of the young man’s education, the cost could have been more than $150,000. Thomas failed to report any of these gifts on his disclosure forms. Our only senators have weighed in (Archive link) and they just don’t care.

I’ve come to the conclusion that every time we talk about Thomas’ corruption I’m going to have to go all Cicero: Thomas must be impeached.

Related, in case you were wondering: Here’s how much Harlan Crow donated to Dallas elections this year (Archive link). My house is in council district 10 and I’m pleased to report that I knew better than to vote for the candidate Crow backed before I read this story. It’s interesting to see that in local races (District 1) Crow’s secret funding of Clarence Thomas is a campaign issue worth including on third-party attack mailers.

Also related, nationally: Graham falsely claims all nine justices signed Roberts’s letter expressing ethics hearing “concerns”. I was indignant when I initially read the news about Roberts’ letter but it turns out Lindsey Graham was just flat-out lying that the rest of the Court had signed on to the letter. Apparently there was a separate statement of the current standards of ethics. I think most of you will agree that the current standards are insufficient (as this TAP article describes), but as the linked newsletter explains, what the justices signed was a lot less upsetting than what Graham said they signed on to.

Last, but not least, in big stories, the City of Dallas is under a ransomware attack. Charles pointed me at this Bleeping Computer rundown which tells me where my tax dollars are going when they pay the ransom, and now the city has confirmed (Archive link) the identity of the ransomware.

My water bill was paid just before the attack hit, so I haven’t tried to use the billing interface (which is supposedly affected) but I can get into it. What I immediately noticed was that the library’s database was down, which probably means I don’t have to finish the book I’m reading that’s due by Saturday after all. Other areas that have seen some problems include city courts (closed) and DPD (significantly impacted per Chief Garcia), and the notes system that emergency dispatchers use with 911. Here’s the official city statement about the attack, which is updated daily but doesn’t say much. I hope next week’s dispatch includes news that the attack is over.

In other news, mostly election-related:

• One for Charles: 8-Day Campaign Finance Reports for RISD. This comes from a new-to-me local blog that covers Richardson, the suburb nearest to my house (I’m zoned to RISD but live in Dallas city limits). I’ll be keeping an eye on Mr Steger’s work from here on in.
• Christian activists are fighting to glorify God in a suburban Texas school district. This is Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, and the article is a good primer on the Christian nationalist push into local school districts and the Patriot Mobile funding connection. One piece of information that’s new to me in this article but doesn’t surprise me in the least is that Ted Cruz’s pastor father is involved in Patriot Mobile. One more reason to get Cruz out of the Senate.
• Related: This first-person account of the ongoing problems in GCISD. “We’re all out here voting for Republicans and being told a leftist takeover is happening in our schools.” I found this via Frankin Strong’s substack, which I once again commend to your attention.
• Also in education news, but not about the election: Dallas ISD Superintendent Declares ‘State of Emergency’ on School Pay. “The appeal comes from roughly a dozen districts in the North Texas area, including Mesquite, Richardson, Frisco and Plano ISDs.” These are the suburban districts that kids get out of DISD to attend, so they’re better off than DISD. All of our public schools need more money; please keep that in mind as you vote, and particularly in races where the candidates favor vouchers and other means of putting public money into private schools.
• Nonpartisan no more? PACs and donors shift the scales on fundraising power in Fort Worth. Some interesting numbers and detail on PAC donations for folks following Tarrant County. It’s easy to be nonpartisan when most everyone is a member of the same party, but things don’t work that way in 2023 and certainly not in the last reddish urban area in Texas.
• In stories I thought might take the lead in today’s Dispatches, the DMN had an editorial about our only governor’s recent foot-in-mouth handling of the recent mass shooting in Cleveland: Texas’ latest mass shooting is about guns, not immigration (Archive link). In addition to how bad he looks to Texans, Abbott is a national embarrassment with respect to immigration policy (WaPo) on top of his many other bad policy takes. We have to vote him out.
• Noting here that the latest on Bryan Slaton having sex with an intern too young to drink, mentioned by Charles earlier this week, got no traction with local news in Dallas.
• The Lege is really Charles’ beat but I wanted to note this piece from the DMN: Electric vehicle owners would pay $200 annual fees under Texas bill sent to Gov. Abbott (Archive link). We’re currently considering a new car at our house, and while an additional $200 a year will just be part of the cost consideration if we decide on an EV, it’s enough to make a difference for a lot of people.
• The Dallas Observer asks an important question: Where Do Newer Acts Fit Into SXSW Today? The answer is that SXSW is and has always been about exposure. When we lived in Austin (2007-2018), we were regular SXSW music-goers. One year we fell in love with a band called Katzenjammer that was playing in the street (Sixth is closed to vehicle traffic during the festival). We got their list of gigs and saw them several times during the festival, the last time at the late, lamented Threadgill’s, where I was interviewed by Norwegian TV. David Byrne also saw them at SXSW and they were at Bonnaroo that summer on a stage Byrne curated. (They never hit it really big in the US, alas, and broke up in 2016.) It’s not the norm, but it does happen, so some bands feel it’s worth it to work for the exposure. I’m not a musician, so I don’t have a dog in that hunt, but I can see both sides.
• Exhibit on legendary Black lawman Bass Reeves opens at Fort Worth museum. I didn’t know about the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum in Fort Worth but I’m going to have to check this exhibit out.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in news from the DFW area, book bans (local and statewide), election administration, some scary climate predictions for Galveston, more Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow, a local is running for president in 2024, and zoo babies are back!

Also early voting for the May 6 election has started, so get out there and vote in your local elections, fellow Texans. May elections have a low turnout so your vote is important!

Today we’re going to talk about book banning in Texas schools. In case you want to know what’s banned in your local districts, PEN America has a database of school book bans for fall 2022. Frisco ISD is the big north Texas book banner right now, with about 5 of the 9 pages in the index that are devoted to Texas book bans devoted to Frisco’s removals. If that sounds like a lot, it is, and the numbers are increasing: ALA: Number of unique book titles challenged jumped nearly 40% in 2022.

And that’s just the local districts, not getting into the shenanigans the Lege is up to this year: Texas education board could ban textbooks that discuss gender identity under proposed bill. That’s HB 1804 for those of you calling your legislators. Also in the Lege, the House passed HB 900 and Franklin Strong’s Substack post on it is worth your time. He summarizes the discussion based on five points. Three are by Representative Erin Zweiner, who rightfully draws the lines connecting this years book bans (sex and gender) with last year’s book bans (“CRT”). Two are by Representative Jerry Patterson, who sponsored this bill. Patterson represents Frisco ISD, which as we noted above, has removed a lot of books from classrooms and libraries this school year. (We talk about Frisco ISD a lot around here. It’s also where Marvin Lowe, who harassed a transgender student at TASB, is a trustee.)

• Following up on the Haider Garcia resignation in Fort Worth: KERA: Tarrant County looks for new elections chief. O’Hare outlines what he wants in position. County Judge O’Hare says election deniers are not automatically ruled out for the job. Related from Talking Points Memo: Survey: Massive Turnover In Local Election Officials Due To Harassment Is Likely By 2024. Also, from the Guardian, ‘Get cancer’: how election lies morphed into a plague of hate in Arizona. Both these articles are really worth your time. The TPM article gives you an idea of the breadth of the problem and the Guardian shows you the depth for individual election officials. As with school boards, the goal from the right is to take elections administration over by forcing out anyone who won’t get with the authoritarian right’s program.
• Why Texans need to know how fast Antarctica is melting. This NPR-produced multimedia infographic about sea level rise around Galveston is terrifying. It talks about the Army Corps of Engineers effort to put up a higher seawall. I hope they get it finished before the waters drown Galveston or a hurricane flattens the island again.
• 2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender. The Texas winner is Diane Wilson, who won a $50 million settlement from Formosa Plastics to help clean up toxic plastic waste from its Point Comfort facility in 2019.
• A note from LinkedIn: To immigrants who got laid off & have 60 days before you have to leave America: here is an in-depth compilation of resources and ideas! The H-1B system was a mess in the 90s and it’s getting worse over time for both H-1B holders and their American colleagues.
• Six degrees of Clarence Thomas updates: From the DMN: A Trammell Crow-related case made it to the Supreme Court during Clarence Thomas’ tenure (Archive link). Which says Thomas lied. From the Guardian: Judicial record undermines Clarence Thomas defence in luxury gifts scandal which is a diplomatic way of saying Thomas lied. Also, from the New Republic: No Labels Took More Than $100,000 From Clarence Thomas Buddy Harlan Crow.
• The DMN has an editorial on Sidney Powell: State Bar of Texas not backing down in fight against former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell (Archive link). Nice to see the DMN on the side of getting rid of lying lawyers.
• Following up on Charles’ post yesterday about downtown parking in Houston and my own post about downtown parking, here’s a scary consideration: Heavier Vehicles in Aging Parking Garages Are a Recipe for Disaster. American cars are bigger and heavier than they used to be, plus now that they’re going electric, that’s additional weight (EVs are heavier than gasoline-powered cars). As the interviewer said in the article, “New urban nightmare just dropped.”
• I also note Charles’ recent post about the settlement in the Collin County DA’s harassment lawsuit. His post covers most of what I have to say, and the KERA article he posted covers everything I’ve read in other local sources like the DMN. The DMN does note that both DA Willis and his wife, District Judge Jill Willis, ran unopposed in November. (Archive link.)
• Also in Collin County, this time at Collin College: Trustee Candidates Hope To Turn Collin College Around from ‘Epicenter of Censorship’. If you’ve forgotten the long-term troubles that Collin College has had, this article reviews them for you. I wish candidates Scott Coleman and Megan Wallace and Trustee Stacey Donaldson good luck in the May 6 election.
• Content warning for animal death and cruelty for this one, unfortunately: Cows found dead with tongues missing across Texas. Police investigating mutilations. (Archive link; NYT coverage). I hope the authorities find out who’s killing these animals and stop them.
• Giving this piece of local news the prominence it deserves: Richardson CEO, pastor Ryan Binkley announces 2024 presidential campaign (Archive link). At least he probably has a better chance than Ron DeSantis.
• In local food news: A Dallas Group Established Its Own Wagyu Beef Herd to Supply Its Restaurants. Yum. I haven’t tried any of these restaurants, but they’re now on my list.
• Some of Our Favorite Bathroom Signs in Dallas. My favorite is the bartender sign at the Grapevine but I really like the “inclusive” sign at Alexandre’s.
• Last but definitely not least: Dallas Zoo says 4 new baby lemurs are ‘thriving’ (Archive link). Look at that cute little face!

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas-area news, two big stories: the Tarrant County election chief has resigned, and more on the Harlan Crow angle of the Supreme Court scandal as the man himself speaks. Plus a Texit-related lawsuit, the 50 fastest speeding tickets issued in Texas last year, and more.

Heider Garcia, the Tarrant County elections administrator, was hired out of California in 2018 and resigned this week, effective in June so he can finish out the May election cycle. Read the resignation letter. Like many election administrators in Texas and across the country, Garcia has been under attack since the 2020 election by proponents of the Big Lie that TFG won the 2020 election. Here’s a timeline of his work for the county administering elections (Archive link.) As mentioned in this Star-Telegram article (Archive link), Tarrant County judge Tim O’Hare was about to go after Garcia by calling both a public meeting and a “closed door executive session discussion” after the May 6 election. (Context: he mentioned it a a True Texas Project meeting on April 10; for those who aren’t clicking through, the headline is “Tarrant County judge says low voter turnout will help conservatives in municipal elections” aka saying the quiet part out loud.)

DMN coverage (Archive link) of this story points out that O’Hare’s goal in running for County Judge was to keep Tarrant County red. As I mentioned back in February, O’Hare was part of the group founding an “election integrity task force” in Tarrant County. Keeping Tarrant County red apparently means running a nationally-admired elections administrator out and installing a Republican-approved replacement, which in my experience means somebody who thinks “voter fraud” is too many Black and brown people voting. The Star-Telegram’s editiorial board (Archive link), which looks at this situation with a little more nominal belief in Tim O’Hare’s claims than I do, is alarmed. You should be too.

Last but not least, and not at all related to O’Hare hounding Garcia out of office: 5 years after voter fraud conviction, Crystal Mason pleads her case in return to Tarrant County court.

In Harlan Crow news, the man himself spoke to the Dallas Morning News in two articles earlier this week and I’m going to follow our host’s tradition and just quote extensively from them because sometimes you can’t say it better about a man than he says it about himself.

On the media.

I think that the media, and this ProPublica group in particular, funded by leftists, has an agenda to destabilize the [Supreme] Court. What they’ve done is not truthful. It lacks integrity.

On his friendship with Thomas.

A lot of people that have opinions about this seem to think that there’s something wrong with this friendship. You know, it’s possible that people are just really friends. It blows my mind that people assume that because Clarence Thomas has friends, that those friends have an angle.

Every single relationship — a baby’s relationship to his mom — has some kind of reciprocity

[In response to the question whether Crow would be friends with Thomas if he weren’t a Supreme Court Justice] It’s an interesting, good question. I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe not. Maybe yes. I don’t know.

On Thomas’ morals.

Justice Thomas is a man of integrity and the idea that he would do anything that’s not exactly correct is just not true.

On whether he inherited his money from his father.

Our company was also in distress … Our economic value had deteriorated. It’s hard to know if it was zero, but it was low. I spent about five years doing workouts. We negotiated with a large number of financial institutions over a long period of time doing all this and we tried to do it as honorably as we could.

On being a “Republican megadonor” (really pitched toward the DMN audience).

I have been a donor to moderate Republican individuals running for office, as well as groups that are involved in that kind of world to support more moderate Republican stuff.

On his collection of Nazi memorabilia, which he says is part of a larger collection of American history documents, including the “bad guys”.

So yeah, World War II was a fairly big event in American history. We have a bunch of stuff about World War II, including some of our enemies… For somebody to say that I like those guys would be a weird conclusion, but that’s been in the press recently … That’s exactly the opposite of what the truth is.

The DMN also fact-checked (Archive link) their interview, which may interest you. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has uncovered more information about Thomas’ undisclosed income (this one got my attention because of the name). And my favorite “yellow journalism” take on Crow’s Nazi memorabilia comes from Lyz Lenz’s newsletter last week: Dingus of the Week: People Who Think Owning Nazi Memorabilia is Defensible Actually.

Personally I don’t care to defend Crow’s memorabilia choices, but I certainly think he believes he’s just gathering a collection to do with American history and it has nothing to do with his own beliefs. His indignation that anyone could judge him for being an oligarch who supports authoritarians like Thomas and make a connection between his politics and his memorabilia is genuine. Privilege and wealth are often that kind of convinced of their own righteousness.

After all that, a few small notes on local and statewide news:

• 10 Years Later: City of West Honors 15 Killed in Fertilizer Plant Blast, Reflects on Rebuilding. A sad anniversary and I wish we’d done more to prevent future tragedies by making sure folks around environmentally dangerous facilities could find out whether those facilities were safe.
• State Rep. Jeff Leach Sued for Defamation for Calling Texas Secessionists ‘Treasonous’. This is Twitter drama that’s interrupting the people’s business and going to court; the plaintiff is a real character; and the Texit bill that started it all is the work of Bryan Slaton, the (allegedly) underage-intern-chasing House member from Royse City. It’s a proper old school Lege scandal in the making.
• Jonathan Mitchell is too busy for court deadlines, but still has time to file new lawsuits. From the new-to-me Law Dork newsletter, here’s a look into the busy schedule Jonathan Mitchell, the author of SB 8 (the abortion bounty law), our former Solicitor General. Apparently deadlines are optional for some people.
• 201 in a 75: Here Are the 50 Fastest Speeding Tickets in Texas in 2022. This is funny to read, especially the excuses, but as the authors note, Texas led the nation in crash fatalities in the first nine months of last year. We have a lot of roads and a lot of people drive very quickly on them. I’ve driven and ridden shotgun on a bunch of these roads and people shouldn’t be driving at the speeds described (130+ mph) in traffic on freeways/highways or ever on rural roads that aren’t maintained for vehicles moving that fast. Stay safe out there, friends!

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas-area news, we have a lot more on Harlan Crow and the Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, the Bryan Slaton scandal, various other bad bills and bad ideas coming out of the Lege and the Governor’s office, problems with beer distribution in Texas over spring break/St. Pat’s/SXSW (!), and a laugh at the expense of some Texas figures courtesy of the Barbie selfie generator. No baby animals this week, alas.

This week we’re starting with Harlan Crow once again. As I was writing this post, ProPublica came out with a new piece of the puzzle: Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal. Makes you wonder what else is missing from Thomas’ disclosures, doesn’t it?

Another of the big stories is in the Washingtonian: Clarence Thomas’s Billionaire Benefactor Collects Hitler Artifacts. This is not local but the photos are real and they do link to a DMN report on the house. I have never been in the house; we don’t run in those circles. But danah boyd and Ethan Zuckerman have visited and have some things to say.

The DMN has some items for your reading pleasure as well. Harlan Crow, who gave lavish trips to Clarence Thomas, has donated $13M to GOP (Archive link.) Note that he does occasionally give to Democrats, like Henry Cuellar. Also there’s Inside Harlan Crow’s ‘Garden of Evil’ and his collection from Washington to Monet (Archive link), which contains the line “They’re not a celebration of repressive regimes, Crow has said.” See also: I am not a crook. Crow’s collection also inspired this meditation on collections, which poses the question: “[H]ow prestigious is owning a piece of a Supreme Court justice?”

Last, but not least, from the DMN is today’s editorial: Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas and a diminished Supreme Court (Archive link.) I’m glad DMN’s editorial board is calling for a code of conduct. But if they really believe Crow and Thomas didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, though, I’ve got some NFTs I’d like to sell them.

I have some questions about about Thomas’ response to the ProPublica investigation: he describes the Crows as “close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court”. Specifically, I’d like to know how Thomas thinks of business before the courts. I’d also like to know whether Crow, or any person or entity involved in Crow’s holdings and investments, was involved in suits before the Supreme Court directly or indirectly, for instance by an amicus curiae brief, in the years when Crow hosted Thomas. I’m sure someone out there is doing that research, which I look forward to reading, especially after the latest revelations.

Our second DFW-area hot topic is this week’s scandal in the Lege, which our host has already covered: House Representative Bryan Slaton of Royse City getting caught having an underage female intern (archive link) over to his condo in Austin for late-night drinks. Calling a young staffer over for drinks and then pressuring her to keep her mouth shut about it is gross, even if there’s nothing more to it.

But some GOP reps have called for his resignation and between the tweets linked there and the language in the Texas Tribune story, I suspect we’re going to find out there’s quite a bit more. Personally I wish the young intern all the best and the least traumatic way out of this situation she can get. I wish Slaton all the justice a man who calls queer folks predators while grooming a minor deserves.

In other news:

• Also in Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, Crowe’s real estate empire is hosting a UATX symposium this summer. UATX is the not-yet-established University of Austin started by conservatives to rival UT Austin; the Forbidden Courses summer program will be held at the Old Parkland Campus, which is one of the signature properties in the Crow Empire. No word on how much, if anything, UATX is paying Crow for the use of his property.
• With Tarrant County’s congressional districts ‘carved to bits,’ who represents us? DFW is as carved up in the current round of gerrymandered redistricting as Austin, where I lived for a decade. When I lived in NW Austin, I was in CD-10 along with folks all the way down 290 to Prairie View; when I lived in SE Austin, I was in CD-35 all the way down 35 to San Antonio; when I moved to near NE Dallas, where I now live, I was in CD-5 with half of East Texas. Now I’m in CD-24 with parts of Fort Worth and a lot of the suburbs in between. I didn’t realize CD-30 (Jasmine Crockett’s district, which I think of as South Dallas because it was Eddie Bernice Johnson’s old seat) also extended into Fort Worth, but I’m not surprised.
• A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo’s parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas. Baby Halo was diagnosed with anencephaly (parts of her brain and skull never developed) at 20 weeks. In a civilized state where people have access to abortion care, her mom would have terminated the pregnancy. In Texas, she had to carry an additional three months, undergo labor and give birth to a child who survived only a few hours. And of course there’s no charitable care for her mom or assistance for Baby Halo’s funeral. This is what the Republican party wants. The cruelty may not be the point but it’s certainly not a problem.
• A story I’m looking forward to is whatever comes of KXAN’s search for stories about TxTag, the central Texas toll authority (found via the Austin subreddit). When I lived in Austin, my only significant problems with TxTag were with NTTA (DFW’s toll authority) failing to read my tag on Dallas tollways. Apparently it’s gotten a lot worse in recent years. I’d rather get rid of some of the toll roads but barring that, I’d at least like my toll tag to work properly.
• In North Texas legislature news: Police ID person who took Bhojani’s family Qur’an but won’t tell us who it was. That’s not even slightly weird!
• In another gross story from the Lege, our only governor is poised to pardon a convicted murderer (Archive link) despite his record of “stingy clemency”. If you need more information on why our so-called law-and-order governor would do such a thing, Radley Balko has all the details.
• In case you were wondering: Texas Legislature’s education savings accounts proposal won’t cover tuition at most Fort Worth private schools. I took a quick look at the tuition numbers from the article. When I sorted them by cost, it looked like the $8000 the Lege is considering would pay the cost of tuition at fewer than 20% of the schools.
• In sad medical news, Shelley Luther, the woman who broke lockdown in DFW during the height of the pandemic, has apparently suffered a brain aneurysm and is on a ventilator in the ICU. I wish her well and hope she has a complete recovery and a return to private life. Also, I would like to note that a quick Google for research about brain aneurysms and COVID turns up a lot of hits, including this case report and literature review on the NIH site whose abstract concludes “COVID-19 infection could be considered as one of the possible risk factors leading to instability and rupture of intracranial aneurysm.”
• News from Plano: Plano gets details of long-awaited overhaul of Shops at Willow Bend mall (Archive link). Today I learned that the Shops at Willow Bend was the last enclosed mall built in Texas. It was completed in 2001. I remember visiting it when it was fairly new and we had family living in the area; it’s already obsolete only two decades into its lifecycle.
• You Had One Job — Country’s Largest Beer Distributor Doesn’t Deliver, Causing Rocky Start in Texas. Reyes Beverage Group, which bought into Texas last year, screwed up deliveries to Austin in March, which means during SXSW, St. Patrick’s, Rodeo Austin, and spring break. In North Texas they also screwed up during the Country Music Awards. I know beer distributing issues in the Lege have been a long-time interest of our host’s so perhaps he’ll have something more on this when it wends its way back to Austin at some later date.
• You need a laugh! Enjoy these Texas politicians and other notable figures in the Barbie selfie generator for the upcoming movie.
• Last but not least: 10 Texas Music Museums Worth the Stop on Your Next Road Trip. Austin and Houston both get a look in here so if you’re local to them, check them out.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas news: Who is the Dallasite at the center of the Clarence Thomas scandal? Plus ACLU support for some area protestors; Fairfield State Park plans; Democrats fighting in Dallas County; and the music scene in Denton.

The biggest story about North Texas right now is, of course, the ProPublica story about Clarence Thomas’ relationship with Dallas real estate magnate and GOP activist megadonor Harlan Crow. The gist of it is that Crow has been taking Thomas to his private vacation estates, hosting Thomas on his yacht for international trips, and flying Thomas around the country on his private jets for two decades and more. Thomas hasn’t reported any of this travel on any of his annual financial disclosures, in violation of federal law.

It’s no surprise that Thomas’ ethics are lacking. Perhaps it’s surprising that he didn’t bother to cover his tracks better, but perhaps Thomas thinks he has transcended the realms of the little people to whom ethics rules and laws apply since he joined the Supreme Court. But we’re not focused on Thomas’ problems. We’re here for the Dallas angle of this story: Harlan Crow.

Trammell Crow, Harlan Crow’s father, founded a namesake commercial real estate development and management firms. Trammell Crow went public and is now an independent subsidiary of the holding firm that owns Coldwell Banker. Harlan Crow manages Crow Holdings, which invests both Crow family money and outside investory assets to the collective tune of $29 billion. Crow Holdings invests in and develops commercial and multifamily residential properties; its best known local project is the redevelopment of Old Parkland. Crow Holding also owns one of the biggest apartment builders in north Texas. The difference between Trammell Crow and Crow Holdings is confusing; it took the DMN article to make it clear to me which parts were which.

Harlan Crow lives in Highland Park and has been involved in a number of Dallas institutions. He once owned D Magazine, which I regularly read and cite in these posts. He’s also on the boards of a number of right-wing groups including the AEI, the George W. Bush Foundation, and the Hoover Institute per this local news explainer. Some additional details about his finances appear in this MarketWatch story (Archive link) but the gist is nobody knows how much money Crow has and if he’s not a billionaire, he’s close. The MarketWatch story also mentions Crow’s donations to Greg Abbott and Mitt Romney, which is to say: what we know about. The Dallas Observer article about the story notes Crow’s friendship with the Bushes and Crow’s gift to Virginia Thomas’ political advocacy nonprofit.

The Dallas Morning News (Archive link) also has an explainer that covers all this information plus a couple of items about his involvement in local politics. In addition to fighting against a publicly owned convention hotel, he had to get his Highland Park estate rezoned so it could also serve as a historical collection. He also has an underground parking garage for his parties and the collection/library, so folks won’t have to park on the neighborhood streets.

The ProPublica article leaves me with the sense that Crow thinks the “we all go out to the ranch and do a little huntin’ and shootin’ and such” excuse will fly. That story has never acknowledged how much business and politicking gets done between people like Crow and Thomas and whoever else was involved. In Texas that story has (officially, superficially) passed muster for a long time. But when the ranch is an upstate New York estate founded by the same woman who built Mar-a-Lago or a fancy yacht, that line becomes a little harder to sell, and the broader US public isn’t as sympathetic as (some) Texans have been. Having said that, there aren’t any teeth in the ethics laws that Thomas violated, so it may not matter.

I’m not a big fan of Jonathan Chait but his piece in the New Yorker is a good summary of the whole business. It’s also a reminder to vote against every one of the people who hold Thomas up as a moral exemplar.

In other news:

• Another reminder that May municipal elections are coming up. Your 2023 municipal elections voter guide for North Texas from KERA and the Fort Worth Report will catch you up if you’re not ready.
• Related, here’s an explainer about residency requirements and some links to stories about controversies about Fort Worth candidates who may not meet them.
• A free speech case is about to come out of North Texas as the ACLU appeals the conviction of three protestors based on an August 2020 protest in Gainesville. (Denton Record-Chronicle; Archive link; Axios; Dallas Observer). The cops told them everything had gone well and then arrested them, and instead of pre-trial diversion they went to a jury. Apparently there was also some hinky stuff with evidence as well. Protesting George Floyd and Confederate monuments in suburban-rural North Texas is risky business.
• Op-ed from the DMN: City planning is for boomers, but millennials and Gen Z drive the market (Archive link). Food for thought on how urban planning serves monied (older) interests at the expense of less monied (younger) interests.
• The latest on plans for Fairfield State Park from the Star-Telegram. (Archive link). The developer is mad that the paper got the plans so you know it’s worth reading. It doesn’t look good for the park or public access.
• Aurora to run driverless trucks from Dallas to Houston by the end of 2024 (Archive link). Get ready, I-45 drivers. The future is here.
• I’m posting this article about parking lots in downtown areas of US cities for the map of downtown Arlington. Apparently 42% of downtown Arlington is parking places. This is the map page where you can fill in the names of some major cities. In Texas, Lubbock is at 35%; Fort Worth is at 27%; Dallas is at 24%; Houston is at 26%; and Austin is at 17%.
• Here’s a story that I’m noting for future purposes because I don’t quite know what to make of it yet: Dallas County forces Price out of 20-year seat on juvenile board following public spat (Archive link). Price is a force to be reckoned with in Black South Dallas; the spat was with County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins. I liked Lewis Jenkins’ handling of the pandemic and thought he might do well statewide. A serious split between Price and Lewis Jenkins might kneecap him. That’s all without getting into the problems with the county juvenile system, which the numbers cited in the article suggest are real and serious. I’m not sure how booting Price off the board solves them, though.
• In lighter news: Dallas’ first alcohol-free bottle shop to open in MCM space in Richardson. I don’t get to drink much for medical reasons so I’m excited to get some grown-up mocktail options.
• And in music news, from Denton, two stories: How to listen: Denton music scene gets the spotlight on NPR’s World Cafe (Archive link) and Denton Label Sawyer Editions Unearths the Future of Contemporary Classical. Denton has a thriving music scene, including a classical scene fostered by UNT’s music department, that I haven’t had as much of a chance to explore as I’d like. It’s only an hour away from me and I need to get up there for some performances.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas news: Carroll ISD (Southlake) bails out of TASB in a new phase in the reactionary war on Texas public schools; more on TFG and the symbolism of his Waco visit; Dallas-area cops should not be left alone with computers; get ready for a Taylor Swift exhibit; the menu at Globe Life Field for the upcoming baseball season; and a baby giraffe at the Dallas Zoo.

The big news this week is that Carroll ISD (Southlake) has voted to end its membership in the Texas Association of School Boards. The news video accompanying this article is worth the two minutes of your time; it makes clear what’s going on. State Representative Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, sent out letters to 1000 school districts to start an exodus from TASB. Similarly, and perhaps surprisingly, the local Fox outlet has a good story on the decision to withdraw (4 minute video). The Fox coverage also talks about the general state of Carroll ISD, one of the first districts targeted by reactionaries for bringing in DEI policies, “CRT”, and other “woke” policies. DEI initiative started after a 2018 incident in which students were caught in video using the N word; in 2021 and 2022 reactionaries captured the board, and the rejection of TASB is one outcome.

You may recall that TASB is also related to the case of Marvin Lowe, the Frisco ISD trustee. He was accused of harassing a trans student at a TASB conference in San Antonio last October. It won’t surprise me if Frisco decides to follow Carroll’s example in the near future.

As noted by Charles here, the The Book-Loving Texan’s Guide to the May 2023 School Board Elections is a resource for finding out about the candidates your local school board election. The document is mostly focused on north Texas districts (Frisco is on the list and Richardson, which is the district my home is zoned into, is in progress), but Houston area districts like Katy and Humble are also included. And they’re also working on central Texas districts like Dripping Springs. While this resource is focused on book banning, that’s a good proxy for anti-DEI, anti-“CRT”, and anti-“woke” sentiment in general.

If this topic interests you, I strongly recommend Clarity & Anger, the substack of Frank Strong, an Austin teacher who put together the Book-Loving Texan’s Guide. His newsletter will keep you up to date on what the bibliophobes and “woke”-haters are up to, and there’s a free tier. I found him on Mastodon, which is where I hang out now that Twitter is toxic. While I can’t say I exactly enjoy reading about haters, I do feel better informed.

In other news:

• A few notes about TFG’s Waco speech.
  • First, in corrections, I initially read that TFG was speaking on the anniversary of the end of the siege; instead he spoke last weekend at the anniversary of the beginning.
  • These two articles that quote Senator Cornyn’s reaction may interest you: GOP Senators Break With Trump Over ‘Offensive’ Jan. 6 Tribute At Texas Rally and Top Republicans balk at Trump highlighting Jan. 6 rioters, calling it politically unwise. Obviously it’s a long time until Cornyn faces the GOP primary field again, but I’m putting a pin in it for 2026.
  • Talking Points Memo again points to the choice of Waco as a venue and the commemoration of the Branch Davidian standoff in this post. There are a couple of follow-up reader notes on the same topic that are also worthwhile. Those of us who are old enough to remember Waco as it happened recall how awful it was, not least because it embodied the fever dream of angry white men holding out against federal force. We have too many angry people with guns in Texas to encourage fighting the federal government in 2023.
• Department of “Dallas cops can’t use computers”, part one for this week: What’s known about the 21 cases reviewed for missing, deleted Dallas police evidence [Archive link] and Is missing Dallas police evidence impacting murder cases? Defense lawyers want answers [Archive link]. The city of Dallas is going to be sorting this out for a long time; the screwups involve both current cases and cases already decided. It’s also going to cost the city and the court system to retry cases and to compensate any defendants who receive a not guilty verdict in retrials. It implicates the credibility of the police and their evidence in future cases. All of this is bad for the judicial system, which has plenty of problems without the police losing or destroying evidence, but DPD brought these further problems on themselves by sloppy evidence handling.
• Department of “Dallas cops can’t use computers”, part two for this week: Dallas County says sold computers may have contained the public’s personal info. [Archive link]. Short version: the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department failed to properly wipe computers that were taken out of service and sold at auction, so they may still contain confidential information from the county’s internal court databases. Oops.
• Shared Air DFW is a visualization resource for air pollution in the Metroplex. It takes data from air quality monitors (currently 100 are being distributed throughout the region) to show real-time air quality online. It’s good that we can now see this information but the information is depressing. It’s a UT Dallas project, so thanks to UT Dallas and the funders. Related, from the Texas Tribune: The EPA wants to limit how much soot you breathe. Here’s what it means for Texas and one of its historic Black towns. Joppa, the freedman’s town in question, is less than 10 miles from downtown Dallas. The Shared Air project is concentrating early efforts there precisely because their air quality is so poor.
• On a sad note for me personally, my advisor at Rice passed away earlier this month. Dr. Katherine Fischer Drew was a fantastic teacher, historian, and leader in her discipline, as you can see in her obituary at the Houston Chronicle. She touched a lot of lives, including mine, and I’m grateful for the advice I got from her and the lessons I learned in and out of her classes.
• Carnivorous Plant Gallery Known as the Texas Triffid Ranch Is Closed for Good. I’m also sad about this; I have friends who had visited the ranch and I’d seen some of the plants at events at the Perot (Dallas’ science museum) before the pandemic. I never managed to get out to the ranch myself, unfortunately. I wish Mr. Riddell the best in his future endeavors and hope to see the plants he sent to the Arboretum this spring.
• A 24-Inch Burger is Among Six New Food Items for the 2023 Season at Globe Life Field. Posting this in the hopes it will lure Charles up here this summer for a game and to try the food. I personally am going to have some of the Hurtado barbecue the next time we go with a baseball-oriented friend.
• From my inbox: Taylor Swift isn’t just coming to Arlington to perform. She’s also the subject of the Arlington Museum’s summer exhibit: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Collection will be here from June through September for all your Swift needs. Tickets go on sale April 13 for members, and April 17 for the rest of us.
• Hipster ’80s-style roller skating rink to wheel into Dallas Design District. I’m already asking around for my friends to join me when this opens for both events: the visit to the roller rink and the visit to the ER that will inevitably follow when I break something falling on my butt.
• Last but not least, in baby animal news: It’s a girl: Dallas Zoo welcomes 131-pound giraffe calf [Archive link.] No name yet for the baby girl. I’m really excited about this one; giraffes are my favorite animal.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in DFW: A run of school violence including a fatal school shooting, in DFW area schools; a former president comes to Waco on a major Texas anniversary; ongoing fallout from the DPD evidence scandal; and cricket comes to Texas in a big way.

Monday in Arlington, two students were shot, [Archive link] one fatally, before school began. Jashawn Poirier, age 16, died in the shooting and another unnamed student was injured. The fifteen-year-old shooter is in juvenile detention in Tarrant County, charged with capital murder. No motive for the shooting has been offered so far.

Meanwhile in Dallas, there was a shooting at Thomas Jefferson High School in northwest Dallas on Tuesday. One student was shot in the arm in the parking lot a few minutes after class let out for the day. The shooter has been arrested according to the superintendent of Dallas ISD. Again, investigators haven’t ascribed a motive.

McKinney ISD also had a weapons incident on Monday, but fortunately it only involved a middle schooler using a knife one of his classmates, causing minor injuries [Archive link.] The knife-wielding student was taken into police custody and the injured student was taken to the hospital to receive medical care.

As the band director at Thomas Jefferson said to the Dallas Morning News, It’s not an ethnic thing, or a rich or poor thing, or a ZIP code thing of where you live or where you go to school. It’s happening everywhere.” Meanwhile our only governor continues to advocate against any restrictions on gun purchases or ownership, and has described legislation to raise the age for gun purchasers to 21 as unconstitutional.

In other news:

• In case you weren’t sure, TFG is really definitely running again and he’s kicking off in Texas: Trump to hold first 2024 rally in Waco this month [Archive link; Talking Points Memo coverage]. As Talking Points Memo notes, this speech will actually be held on April 19, the 30th anniversary of the FBI raid on the Branch Davidians, a cause célèbre on the far right. This is a little like Ronald Reagan’s Neshoba speech opening his 1980 general election campaign, where he talked about states’ rights a stone’s throw away from the site where the KKK had murdered three civil rights workers in 1964. The dog whistle here is not particularly subtle. Somewhat related, Netflix has just released a docuseries about Waco by a Dallas-raised filmmaker that presents new footage and audio about the siege.
• A strong second vote for this Dallas Observer story as mentioned by our host here. I agree with Charles’ analysis that this is a state-level problem, and not a new one; I was living in Austin when Austin was overruled on the question of fingerprinting rideshare drivers. Where I would go further is that the powers-that-be in state government generally see overriding local governments as a feature, not a bug. The way to solve this problem is to vote our state leaders out.
• More fallout from the DPD evidence scandal: Dallas County prosecutors want judge removed from murder case [Archive link]. Apparently she also holds prosecutors responsible for not ensuring all the evidence in this case and others like it has been presented to the court and defense attorneys. A little research shows Givens and the DA’s office have been wrangling for at least a year and while it’s hard to tell whether the bad blood in this case is merely an extension of that fight, concern about evidence handling is clearly merited.
• Not at all related: After 25 Years in Prison, Local Man Exonerated for 1997 Deep Ellum Murder.
• Dallas County cuts 101 voting locations for May elections [Archive link.] This is a little more than a quarter of the voting locations in the county. I’m not clear from the map whether I’ll be able to cast a ballot at my local library during early voting or not.
• Confederate flag groups booted from Fort Worth Stockyards parades over St. Pat’s [Archive link]. They’d already been booted from other events and this time, after they managed to get into the St Patrick’s Day parade, the ban was made more explicit. Good.
• The ‘Dallas Express’: Your Go-To Source for Right-Wing, Astroturf News. Pretty sure I have discussed this site with Charles in the past, but here’s an update on an ugly local situation in which the name of a storied Black newspaper in Dallas has been repurposed as a pink slime operation.
• Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins Looks Back on When COVID-19 Hit Dallas 3 Years Ago. Lewis Jenkins’s leadership through the early stages of the pandemic was lifesaving. I wish he’d been able to do more of what he wanted to do.
• Company failed to address ice on I-35W before 130-vehicle pileup that killed 6, NTSB says [Archive link]. This is fallout from the 2021 winter storm. The “company” is the owner of the toll road; the NTSB says they didn’t do enough preparation and their monitoring was insufficient. Look for more news about this because at least six people died and this report will be fodder for lawsuits.
• In sports news: North Texas’ Pro Cricket Team Partners With Four-Time Indian Champs. The Texas Super Kings are part-owned by the same folks as the Chennai Super Kings, plus the less-prestigious Johannesburg Super Kings. The local ownership share includes Ross Perot, Jr. They’ve retrofitted an independent baseball stadium in Grand Prairie for cricket; no word on whether they added air conditioning for the summer games. The Guardian also has a take on US cricket that’s worth reading if only for the image of one of our Texas congressional representatives at the player draft at Johnson Space Center.
• I had never really thought about this, but it’s true. How I knew I was pretty desperate for anything resembling Tex-Mex when I lived in New Jersey for a few years was how excited I got about a Chili’s opening within walking distance of our Jersey City apartment.
• This week in cute Dallas critters: Dallas Zoo welcomes baby warthog. Tikiti was born on February 17 and has been getting round the clock care because apparently she’s not as active as the keepers wanted. Best wishes to her.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in North Texas, we have bad bills filed by our local legislators and follow-ups on a variety of ongoing stories in North Texas including the Dallas Zoo, the buyer of the Roe v Wade archive, and the back-and-forth in Frisco ISD about trans kids.

The deadline to file bills in the Texas legislature has passed, so it’s time for a rogue’s gallery of bad bill filers from North Texas. Take note of these names and remember to remind your pals from these parts that friends don’t let friends vote for dumbasses who put forward garbage bills.

Senator Phil King of Weatherford (west of Fort Worth) is a co-sponsor of bills designed to restrict the development of renewable energy in Texas in favor of fossil fuel power plants [Archive link].

Representative Bryan Slaton of Royse City (northeast of Dallas) wants to put a secession referendum on the ballot, which is probably illegal and unconstitutional, but who cares about that? He also filed HB 42, which would define gender-affirming care for kids as child abuse.

As mentioned in this article, Representative Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth filed HB 1266, which defines commercial enterprises that host drag shows as sexually oriented businesses. The linked article is about him harassing a constituent who responded by posting a picture of Schatzline in a dress to social media.

Representative Jared Patterson of Frisco has a number of bad bills, mentioned in this article about his Don’t Say Gay Bill. His greatest hits for the 2023 session also include abolishing the city of Austin and banning minors from social media.

Representative Matt Shaheen of Plano (of whom more later) filed a bill to make daylight savings time permanent, which is less harmful than other bills described here but is not what I’d personally consider a high priority in the 2023 session. He’s also behind HB 620, which would end the Robin Hood school tax recapture. (This local news story has some numbers for what Robin Hood does to Dallas and Plano schools.) While there’s quite a bit of room for debate around Robin Hood, I’m personally suspicious of a bill by a Republican who’s in favor of “school choice”, aka defunding public schools and subsidizing private schools. Shaheen is a little smart to be on the dumbass list and is all the more dangerous for it.

One good bill I like comes from Austin, where Representative Donna Howard filed to exempt menstrual products and a variety of pregnancy and baby needs from state sales tax.

In other stories:

• More on last week’s big news from DPD Dallas police’s missing video evidence impacts suspects, victims, defense lawyers say. Well, yes.
• A good summary piece about the recent thefts at the Dallas Zoo. How the Dallas Zoo mystery unraveled. [Archive link].
• Shout-out to Collin County in this Daily Beast article: Matt Gaetz’s New Staffer Identifies as a ‘Raging Misogynist’. Apparently Andrew Kloster is facing misdemeanor charges for “assault that causes bodily injury against a family member”. No surprise that Matt Gaetz likes him.
• As mentioned above, more from Matt Shaheen: Leaked Audio Recording Could Lead To Investigation Of FISD Trustees. This is pretty disappointing on the part of the trustees, if only because they let themselves get caught on tape. On the other hand, the temperature of board meetings in Frisco is pretty high right now, and it’s a problem that students and parents are afraid to attend board meetings, as mentioned in this DMN article [Archive link] in which the Frisco ISD board president defends what she said. And of course, this all ties back to Marvin Lowe, whom we’ve seen previously in these reports, and bathroom policy for trans kids.
• Super disappointing: Conservative radio host Glenn Beck buys Roe v. Wade attorney Linda Coffee’s archive to highlight “bloody legacy”. I was afraid of this when I saw the papers were being auctioned off; I’m disappointed that my fears were realized.
• Related to the drag bills mentioned above, sort of: Ebb & Flow Hosted a Drag Brunch. Now, Texas Might Tax it Like a Sexually Oriented Business. Bugs Bunny would like a word with the Comptroller about this drag making a business sexually oriented thing.
• Blast from the past: ‘Media Men’ Lawsuit Ends in a Settlement. This is the spreadsheet that started #MeToo. The woman who started the spreadsheet, Moira Donegan, is mentioned in the article but the NY Times didn’t ask her for a comment. So of course the emphasis is on the man who filed the suit and his feelings. No word on the feelings of the woman or women who actually named him in the spreadsheet, of course.
• In Houston-adjacent news: Texas woman becomes longest-serving female radio presenter in the world. She’s 85 years old, DJs on K-Star in Conroe, and has been there long enough to present the music of a young up-and-comer named Elvis Presley.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas news: The DPD evidence scandal grows, more about Marvin Lowe, water cremations, winter weather, Star Wars, and finally some good news at the Dallas Zoo.

I complain a lot about the Dallas Morning News, but they’ve done a good job covering the Dallas PD evidence scandal. Here are the two most recent stories about what the investigation into missing evidence is finding: Murder cases could be in jeopardy as Dallas police review 450 cases for missing evidence [Archive link] and What we know about Dallas police search for missing video evidence in murder cases [Archive link]. 13 homicide convictions are in jeopardy and now they’re going through violent crime cases. One does wonder whether this is a problem with DPD or whether review of other law enforcement agencies would show the same kinds of negligence in evidence handling. Meanwhile, I hope the last line of this DMN story about official reactions to the missing evidence [Archive link is correct and someone is going to be held responsible for these screwups.

• Following up on last week’s big story: Frisco ISD discusses discipline of trustee Marvin Lowe [Archive link]. The board couldn’t get a second to the motion to investigate Lowe; he claims it’s all a ploy to suppress votes in the May election. It’s unsurprising but still disappointing that he’s going to brazen his way through this. I hope voters in Frisco ISD will remember this when he’s up for re-election in 2025.
• Tarrant County commissioners recall appraisal district board chair. This is all about who picks her successor: the district board or the local governments. This kind of deep-in-the-weeds local politics is important but often overlooked, especially since voters only get a very indirect say in who’s on the appraisal district board.
• Also deep in the weeds: New Bill from Local Senator Seeks To Legalize Water Cremations in Texas. Apparently this method is used for medical cadavers and pets but is questionably legal for regular human remains. The bill would clarify this point of law. I’d never heard of water cremations until I read this article, but I’m now interested in them, possibly for myself when the time comes. This is my state Senator’s bill and his comments on this bill demonstrate some of the things I like about him.
• Tarrant County accepts more than $2 million from latest round of opioid settlements. They’ve already gotten a half-million from a previous suit and have one more to go. The state got $1.17 billion from the same lawsuit. No word on where the money will go.
• In “who’s a Texan?” news: Herschel Walker told Tarrant County office he doesn’t live in Texas anymore, report says [Archive link]. In the Florida v Texas sweepstakes, they can keep Walker.
• Dallas had one of its warmest winters on record. I’ve been coming to Dallas for Christmas for family reasons since the mid 90s even before I moved here in 2018, and this data confirms my instinct that winters here are warmer than they used to be even as the weather gets wilder overall.
• Roe v. Wade Archive Sells at Auction for More Than $600,000. As mentioned last week. It went to an anonymous buyer whom I really hope gives it to an academic archive.
• In entertainment news: After 45 Years, Richardson Documentarian Brings the ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ Back to Life. I love Star Wars but some dead things are better left undisturbed.
• SXSW says it’s going to reevaluate low wages paid to musicians. Artists say that’s long overdue. Good. The pay is basically a wristband, which is a ripoff.
• Could a Grand Prairie Restaurant Be the Next Big Barbecue Chain Out of Texas? Eater Dallas looks at a new BBQ spot owned by Larry Lavine, the Dallas restaurateur who founded Chili’s. I haven’t yet tried Ten 50, the other Lavine BBQ investment mentioned in this article, but it’s now moving up on my list.
• Dallas Zoo Welcomes (Really, Really Big) Baby Elephant. He was born on February 26 and his name will be announced next week.

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in DFW, our most interesting story is a brouhaha in Frisco ISD, but we also have an interview with Sarah Weddington’s co-counsel in Roe v. Wade, trouble with the Dallas SPCA, local elections news, including speculation about who’ll go for Colin Allred’s seat if he takes on Ted Cruz, and more. Be sure to scroll down for a link to a picture of bald eaglets!

Marvin Lowe, a Frisco ISD trustee elected in the May 2022 cycle, had some kind of interaction with a trans student from Brownsville at a statewide educational conference in September of last year. The student reports that Lowe said a number of inappropriate things, he’s backed up by his mother and at least two other adults, and he and his family seem to have gone through official channels until last week, when they spoke to the Dallas Morning News [Archive link] because they weren’t getting any satisfaction. Lowe apparently talked about his “junk” and naked people in locker rooms and people getting aroused to the student; also, according to everybody but Lowe, an activist had to intervene to get Lowe to leave the then sixteen-year-old student alone.

Lowe didn’t want to talk to the DMN, but the subject came up at a Frisco ISD board meeting on February 26 (Frisco Star), exciting significant controversy from speakers. Lowe denied everything at the meeting but has since gone on a conservative talk radio show to defend himself (DMN archive link) but his story has already started to shift: now he says he talked to the student’s mother about locker rooms.

Lowe won his seat from incumbent Kathy Hebert by 51 votes after a recount. His candidate website is bare-bones but mentions his opposition to CRT in the schools. Here’s some coverage of the race and Lowe’s supporters in Texas Monthly from last May, which demonstrates how Lowe’s candidacy is part of the ongoing reactionary attack on public schools, teachers, and curriculums in north Texas.

I don’t expect Lowe will resign, or be forced to, but I don’t expect we’ve heard the last of this case, or Lowe.

In other news:

• Roe v. Wade Started in Dallas. Now the Archive Is Up for Auction. An interview with Linda Coffee and Rebecca Hartt, whose archive of Roe v. Wade documents is up for auction. Coffee was Sarah Weddington’s co-counsel on the case. Also if you have a spare $50K lying around, you too can bid on the auction.
• SPCA of Texas Names Interim President/CEO After Current Leader Resigns. The former president was forced out after closing the south (Black) Dallas low-cost vet clinic and dropping its work with the city on animal cruelty. As noted in the DMN last week, [Archive link], this was not a good look as far as the donors were concerned and Karen Froehlich, the former CEO, resigned. Another local animal charity, Operation Kindness, has stepped up to help while the SPCA gets its ducks and other critters back in a row.
• Justice Department Files Fair Housing Complaint Against DFW Landlord. The gist of it is that federal checks come on the first and rent is due on the first. If you let people pay without a late fee until the fifth, they can use those federal checks to pay rent without penalty. So changing the penalty date is a method of getting rid of folks depending on those federal payments, in this case SSI. And complaining about the change gets you labeled a troublemaker.
• Texas Medical Association Files Fourth Lawsuit in Battle Against Surprise Billing Implementation. This is getting into the weeds of the No Surprises Act, which was all about stopping surprise out-of-network medical bills. Now the doctors and insurance companies are fighting about the regulations around arbitration. Why is this a North Texas issue? Tarrant and Dallas counties are first and second, respectively, for per capita medical debt, in part because we have so many uninsured people in Texas: twice the national average percentage-wise.
• Who Writes Stories For and About Texans? Andrea Grimes’ annual survey of magazine writers and bylines in Texas. The link tells you a bit about her methods and outcomes and, in one case, some shortcomings; the actual numbers are crunched in a linked report. Teal deer: white people write most of the magazine articles; women write more than men but men get better articles and more cover bylines; trans and nonbinary folks are overrepresented compared to their numbers in the population; the Valley and the Panhandle are underrepresented, DFW and Austin are overrepresented, and so are California and New York.
• Tarrant County plans to cut funding for affordable housing project in Las Vegas Trail. Instead of the previously planned affordable housing in an underserved (poor) community, the county is going to put part of its federal COVID money into a new peace officer academy. The previous commissioner (a Republican first elected in 1987) in the precinct where Las Vegas Trail is located retired in 2022 and the new incumbent is the president of the Fort Worth Police Officer’s Association.
• In municipal elections news: Two Dallas City Council Seats Destined for New Blood. Close-up on the candidates in D3 and D10, the two open seats. I live in D10 and have been getting texts from Hassenbauer, who is apparently the only Democrat in the officially nonpartisan (no primaries) race. The Observer also focuses on D1: Equal Representation at Center of Dallas’ District 1 City Council Race. It’s a majority-Hispanic district represented by a white member.
• 2024 election speculation: Political dominoes could fall if Democrat Colin Allred takes on GOP’s Ted Cruz for Senate [Archive link]. Aka who’s going after Allred’s seat if he goes after Cruz.
• Also in suburban school district trustees this week: James Whitfield, former Grapevine-Colleyville principal, sues district. [Archive link.] Another battle in the ongoing suburban school district wars. This was the case where the district ran out a Black principal for teaching “critical race theory” after the George Floyd protests. A settlement was reached and then one of the trustees, elected after Whitfield’s departure, repeatedly said defamatory things about the former principal. (Example from last year in the Star-Telegram: Archive link). A quick google of Tammy Nakamura, the trustee in question, turned up a Colleyville activist FB page featuring a photo of Nakamura with a Confederate flag and her page on Trumpettes USA. I wish Dr. Whitfield good luck in his suit and with his future employment.
• In cultural news: Author Nikole Hannah-Jones Visits Bishop Arts to See the Plays She Inspired. I didn’t know until it was almost over that there was a 1619 Project one-act play festival in Dallas.
• Magic: the Gathering fans ‘heartbroken’ as $100,000 worth of cards found in Texas landfill. Sadly the Reddit posts where the photos were originally posted don’t say where. What they do show is that the cards are unusable.
• Why the climate crisis may be coming for your margarita next. There may not be enough water to grow agave if things keep going on the way they are, and that would be a Texas-sized tragedy.
• John Baker Sands Wetland Center welcomes two bald eaglets (Instagram.)

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week in Dallas area news, we now know the candidates for various races in the May elections in the Metroplex; staffing and evidence issues in the Dallas Police Department; and news from Dallas Museums. Also, from the border by way of the BBC, a fascinating short film about a Texas town that is now part of Mexico.

• Know Your Book Banners: Families Engaged for Effective Education. This is from a new substack newsletter called Anger & Clarity that focuses on Texas educational issues. I’ve found it worthwhile, but this edition on the book banners, many of whom are in North Texas, was particularly interesting.
• North Texas municipal elections are coming on May 6 and the filing date for candidates has passed. The big news in Dallas is that Mayor Johnson will be running unopposed for his next term. Local coverage: Filing deadline: Here’s who’s running for Dallas mayor, City Council in 2023 [Archive link]: Meet Your Official Candidates in the May Municipal and School Board Elections from D Magazine and Who’s running for two Dallas ISD school board seats [Archive link]; Here are the 30 candidates running for Fort Worth City Council and Who’s running for Fort Worth-area school boards and TCC? from Fort Worth Report. Some of the ISD board names in the Fort Worth area may be familiar to folks who follow school-related news topics.
• Dallas police look to recruit, retain officers in new ways as ‘hiring crisis’ endures [Archive link]. The usual suspects are an issue: low pay and perceived lack of safety compared to the suburbs; unfunded pension liabilities; national issues with police careers; and of course the state mandates for police funding. There’s an interesting graph about attrition vs. intake along with the article. In addition to local recruitment, apparently DPD is recruiting in Puerto Rico to attract officers: Dallas Police Return to Puerto Rico for Recruitment (from July 2022).
• 5 things to know about Dallas police’s 52,000 untagged files and how it could impact cases [Archive link]. While we’re on the subject of DPD: here’s a big screwup where they’ve violated state law on evidence storage. If prosecutors don’t turn over evidence in cases to the defense because it’s been improperly stored, that means defendants can’t get a fair trial. And in some cases, it looks like evidence has been deleted; that evidence could not only prove a case for prosecutors, it could exonerate defendants. Plus it turns out that DPD hadn’t told the DA or the council: Dallas DA wasn’t aware of 52,000 improperly stored police files before The News’ report [Archive link].
• City Of Dallas Working On Plan To Legalize Card Rooms. The zoning issues are interesting to me, and reminiscent of some of the issues around keeping the Heights dry that I experienced living there 20 years ago. The rest of it sounds like standard “make it legal & regulate it vs criminalizing it with all the trouble crime brings” discussion that goes with sexually oriented businesses, alcohol in dry areas, and other “moral” issues in Texas.
• The border town that ‘forgot’ it was part of the US. A 10-minute subtitled video from the BBC about the town of Rio Rico, which was in the US until a change to the Rio Grande put it in Mexico. Featuring corporate malfeasance in the form of changing the flow of the river (hence, the border), immigration law, and Al Capone.
• Texas’ “anti-woke” policies cost taxpayers millions. Axios follows up on the state’s decision to force a boycott “woke” financial institutions that won’t invest in the energy business. Unsurprisingly, it’s costing Texans a lot of money to subsidize the political stances of Republican state officials instead of letting the free market do its thing.
• How the UNT Health Science Center Helps Artists and Performers Get Back on Stage. Much needed free medical care for musicians in Fort Worth. This is a proof of concept and they expect to fundraise to make it permanent.
• First woman appointed director of SMU’s Meadows Museum. The Meadows is a gem. If you visit Dallas and find yourself in the SMU area with a couple of hours to spare, you could do a lot worse than spending your time exploring its collection of Spanish art.
• Also in museum news: The Reimagining the Dallas Museum of Art International Design Competition. “The DMA’s 1984 building by Edward Larrabee Barnes was designed for a different Dallas, a different time, and a different society. Conceived among warehouses and undeveloped city lots, the austere Modernist design in Indiana limestone forefronted elegance and quiet dignity. But in a different cultural context, with changing visitor expectations, with access to art now an issue of equity, diversity and inclusion, and with ambitious new skyscrapers and parks emerging around the Museum, Barnes’ capacious two-block campus can be read as unwelcoming, off-putting, and defensive. Visitors find the complex difficult to navigate, while inflexible and dated galleries have resulted in iconic artworks languishing in storage.” So apparently they’re going to replace it and this is the first stage of a contest to find an architect to plan the work.
• From the arts in the greater Houston area, featuring a particular interest of mine: Viols Blooming in Texas. There’s an early music consort for teens in Humble! For those of you in the Houston area, if you’re interested in listening to this kind of thing, check out Houston Early Music, which is mentioned in the article.

Note: this is the second edition of the Dallas-area news roundup conducted by my friend Ginger. Issue 1 was last Friday. We got a lot of positive response to that and I definitely like it, so on we go. The title is taken from the email Ginger sent me, so we’ll give that a try as the feature name. Let us know what you think. Thanks!

This week’s DFW news is mostly about the suburbs: Southlake, Carrolton & Farmer’s Branch, and Arlington are featured trouble spots. Also, I’ve found Archive.ph, which archives web pages and may be useful for reviewing articles on the Dallas Morning News or the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. If you can’t get through to an article I’ve linked, I may have archived it for you.

• ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’ Opal Lee Is Honored With Portrait in the Texas Capitol. I grew up knowing about Juneteenth, but it wasn’t until I moved to Dallas a few years ago that I learned about Opal Lee. Surprising things in this story: apparently Dan Patrick was down with putting her portrait in the Capitol, which may be the nicest thing I’ve ever heard about him.
• Another North Texas Man Arrested for Violent Role in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot. The opening line “Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a North Texas man has been arrested for his involvement in the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021” says it all. A number of the notorious characters of the insurrection come from the DFW suburbs, including a realtor from Frisco, and the founder of the Oath Keepers, who’s from Granbury. It’s not clear to me whether it’s the proximity to East Texas or suburban/exurban white flight, but whatever it is, there’s a lot of it in the water in north Texas.
• Southlake, Texas, rejected diversity lessons in schools. But a federal probe may demand them. This is a pretty good explainer about the problems in Southlake, one of the white flight suburbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. They have eight federal civil rights investigations into the schools. This follows on from a lawsuit about racial harassment where the school district was about to settle for DEI initiatives, but a bunch of “conservative activists” took over the school board and nixed the plan. This NY Times piece from last October fills in some of the information about that election and a big money group that’s backing these “activists” and is also heavily involved in the censorship of school libraries across the state. (An aside that Congresswoman Van Duyne, mentioned in the NBC article, is also my Congresswoman; I’m in the far eastern end of her district through the magic of Texas redistricting. Before that I was in CD-5 with Lance Gooden of Terrell as my House representative.)
• Also in suburban school-related news: Dallas man arrested after thousands of fentanyl pills found in car during Collin County traffic stop, officials say & Authorities arrest man in Carrollton case suspected to be ‘main source’ of fentanyl supply [Archive link; Dallas Observer coverage]. Carrollton-Farmer’s Branch ISD has seen about a dozen overdoses of fentanyl, including three students who died, recently. This has been an ongoing story in DFW. I side-eye the War on Some Drugs and drug-related law enforcement but junior high kids ODing and kids dying is pretty bad.
• Tarrant County officials announce efforts to fight voter fraud, even as election crimes remain rare. Nice to see a headline that announces in advance that yet another Republican effort to chase down voter fraud isn’t going to find anything because it doesn’t exist. This is a good skim of the top layer of the Tarrant County voting situation, which boils down to “a bunch of people are angry because Donald Trump lost Tarrant County in 2020”. The DMN is also on it: What to know about Tarrant County’s new election-fraud unit [Archive link].
• Followup on the Dallas City Council resolution supporting abortion: Republican lawmakers ask AG Paxton to review Dallas resolution supporting abortion rights. [Archive link] Dallas isn’t Austin or Houston but the Lege and the AG can threaten our city council all the same.
• A tale of two cities: Posting this for the graphic about the distribution of electric car chargers in Philadelphia and Dallas. The interesting piece for me is that South Dallas (Black Dallas) below I-30 basically has none but the inner suburban ring (majority-minority, but more diverse) is well served with car chargers.
• The Dallas Morning News Will Reassign Al Día’s Journalists, and Some Aren’t Happy About It. Al Día, the Spanish-language newspaper from the DMN, is going to become a weekly section of the paper; its staff, some of whom are Spanish-speakers first, has been distributed among various departments. In a time of news cutbacks, including at the DMN, I’m not sorry they have an architectural critic, but cutting this section and leaving him is telling, too.
• On the history front: 3 amateur codebreakers set out to decrypt old letters. They uncovered royal history. NPR has the best pop history piece about how the Mary Queen of Scots letters came to be deciphered. Though I whiffed on doing professional history, I still love reading about how researchers solve historical mysteries like this one, which is going to significantly change and improve our understanding of a key figure in Tudor-Stewart history.
• Last but not least: A Flickr album of photos of Cementario Mexicano De Maria De La Luz Circle S Rd. S. Austin taken by a friend of mine in Austin. He’s not a professional but he does gorgeous work. Also recommended: his albums of photos from Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.

Hello, Off the Kuff readers! I’m Ginger and I’ve been friends with our host for nigh onto thirty years. Back in the early 2000s, when they called it “warblogging”, I had a blog, but I’ve long since retired it. I’ve been sending Charles items from the news in Dallas, where I now live, for a while and offered to start doing local news roundups for DFW.

I was born and raised in Houston, lived for a decade in Austin, and have lived in Dallas for four and a half years now: long enough to get familiar with a lot of local politics but not long enough to have found everything about the area that’s interesting. My political interests are broad, from immigration (I used to work as a paralegal for a corporate immigration lawyer) to reproductive choice (Charles and I infiltrated an anti-abortion activist meeting together to report back to our local Planned Parenthood many years ago), to disability issues. When I’m not doing politics, I read a lot, mostly history, mysteries, and science fiction/fantasy, listen to a lot of music, and play tabletop roleplaying games in person and online.

What you can expect to see from me is news from the DFW metroplex, centered mostly on Dallas and the Dallas-side suburbs mixed with some local stories that I get from friends who are still in Austin and a few larger stories that grab my interest. I’ll probably post about a half-dozen links every week and we’ll see how it goes.

• Houses Catch Fire in Tenth Street, Dallas’ Historic Freedman’s Town. This is in South Dallas, which means south of I-30, which means Black Dallas. It’s a city historic district but unsurprisingly there’s not a lot of investment.
• Man jailed in Dallas Zoo crimes plans to steal more animals if released, affidavits say. (DMN, paywalled, no paywall version on MSN). According to the police, it looks like most of the recent trouble at the Dallas Zoo can be traced to this one person, who was responsible for the theft of the emperor tamarin monkeys and attempted theft of the clouded leopard and the langur monkeys. No word yet on whether they’re going to charge him with the killing of Pin, the endangered lappet-faced vulture who was found dead in his cage recently.
• Dallas city council votes to commemorate Roe v. Wade. One council member (mine, who will be hearing from me) voted against it and several others and the mayor absented themselves. Also there’s paywalled story covering the same story at the Dallas Morning News, which goes a bit more into the local politics of Black south Dallas and Hispanic/Latin east Dallas supporting abortion rights and white north Dallas not so much.
• ‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’ This story about a near collision between a FedEx cargo jet and a Southwest passenger jet at Austin Bergstrom terrified me. Also worth your time is this recommended blog post from a retired air traffic controller (linked within above): Austin Disaster; Jfk Incursion; Memphis Police: Safety Systems Gone Wrong. Apparently ABIA doesn’t have AMASS (Airport Movement Area Safety System) [pdf] and that’s a safety problem I didn’t know about when I was flying in and out.
• Blast from the past: Elián González nearly became an American. Now, he’s poised to become a Cuban lawmaker. The struggle over González was huge in its day; I can only imagine the hot takes it would generate now. But time marches on and the five-year-old we middle-aged folks remember from the news is now pushing 30.
• Finally, in local fun: What We’re Cooking for Meow Wolf Grapevine! Meow Wolf is an immersive, interactive art company. They started in Santa Fe and their fourth installation is coming to DFW this summer. A friend from Santa Fe recommended them as a fun thing to visit so I’ve been following news about them as they get closer to opening. This is a peek behind the scenes and is only whetting my appetite to visit.

Note from Charles: The idea to do this kind of Dallas-centric news roundup emerged from an email exchange Ginger and I had. It was Ginger’s blog, which I stumbled across in 2001, that gave me the impetus to do this blogging thing, and I’m delighted to have her voice on here. We’ll see how this goes, and we may come up with a suitable name for the feature if we’re inspired. Let me know what you think.