Let’s hit a few points not covered in the accompanying article. First, a lot of questions were raised yesterday about why downtown Austin was still lit up while adjacent East Austin was almost totally dark — as were many other parts of town. Austin Energy responded...
You won’t hear this from me very often, if ever again, but Democrats in Washington need to learn from and follow the example of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In the Texas Senate, which Patrick leads, until very recently it took support from 19 of the 31...
Despite the violent insurrection in Washington D.C., local and regional news has not slowed down. Here are a few quick highlights. The Texas Legislature is back in town. The Austin area has reached a dangerous new level in the COVID-19 pandemic. The group conducting...
Come on Texas Republicans. What a bunch of snowflakes. OK, that could cover a lot of ground. I’m referring specifically to the “Public Admonition” of State Senator Sarah Eckhardt by the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct. It is for actions Eckhardt took while...
Does anybody out there remember when two of the things Republicans hated the most were “activist judges” and people styling themselves as victims? The last Republican President before Donald Trump, that would be George W. Bush, used to spit the term out with such...
Well, here at The Austin Independent we didn’t exactly get the scoop on Mayor Steve Adler taking a trip to Mexico in early November. From there he recorded a Facebook message telling Austinites: “We need to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax. We are...
It’s been almost three weeks since the election and President Donald Trump continues to hide out in the White House with almost no public events on his schedule. Also, the man who prides himself on being such a tough guy has not taken a single question from reporters...
Those of us who focus on and care about government generally do so because we want the government to do a good job. Especially on the Democratic side, we want government to work. And, when we see it working well, the view here is that we should say so. With that...
I’m guessing it was a pretty tense Executive Team meeting at the Texas Attorney General’s Office this Monday morning. Actually, I don’t even know if the Texas Attorney General’s Office has Executive Team meetings on Monday, or ever. The point is that things must...
Let’s begin this week with a few updates on previous stories. First of all, we have talked a few times about a torrent of East Austin zoning cases that are pouring through the City approval system even as the pandemic rages. For instance, proposed upzonings all but...
