Tag: Austin

Interim Chief: Austin Police Department in ‘Dire Crisis’ after Defunding

The Center Square

The city of Austin faces a crisis of rising violent crime after the City Council voted last year to drastically reduce the police department’s budget, interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon says.

Last summer, the Austin City Council voted to defund the police department by $150 million, which resulted in canceling multiple cadet classes and disbanding multiple units responsible for responding to DWIs, domestic violence calls, stalking, and criminal interdiction.

Instead, the council redistributed the money to other city programs and suggested that community organizers respond to 911 calls, instead of the police department.

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Texas Attorney General Sues the City of Austin over Mask Mandate

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Ken Paxton (R-Texas), the Attorney General of Texas, has filed a lawsuit against the state’s capital city of Austin on Thursday after the city refused to rescind its mask mandate, as reported by The Hill.

The lawsuit names Mayor Steve Adler (D-Texas), Travis County Judge Andy Brown, and interim Medical Director Mark Escott. The suit comes after Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) announced on March 2nd that he would be officially and completely reopening the state of Texas via executive order, rescinding all mask mandates and allowing all businesses to reopen to 100 percent capacity.

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Commentary: LARPers Lament as Real Life-and-Death Consequences Come to Austin

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There’s a term, and an acronym, that every American interested in following the rank stupidity of this summer’s occurrences in America’s blue cities ought to be familiar with.

The term is Live-Action Role Playing, and the acronym is LARPing. What you’re seeing on the streets of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, and other cities are textbook examples of this phenomenon playing out.

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Commentary: Will the Renaming Game Hit Leftist States and Cities?

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You might call it being hoist on your own petard.

The move is on, as is known, to change the names of American military bases that are named for Confederate generals. The New York Times, among many others on the Left, was furious. The Times headline:

Trump Rejects Renaming Military Bases Named After Confederate Generals

By dismissing an idea under consideration by the Pentagon, the president positioned himself firmly against the movement to remove racist symbols and combat racism touched off by George Floyd’s death.

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Apple Is Dropping $1 Billion to Put 5,000 Jobs in Texas With Expansions Planned in Major Cities

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by Tim Pearce   Apple is investing $1 billion to nearly double its workforce in Texas and is hiring thousands more employees in offices across the U.S., the company announced Thursday. Apple is adding 5,000 positions to its Austin, Texas, campus on top of the 6,200-strong workforce already there. The tech company is also establishing campuses in San Diego, Seattle and Culver City, California, employing about 1,000 people each. Hundreds more jobs will be added to other offices in places such as New York, Pittsburgh and Boulder, Colorado, by 2022. Apple’s announcement is relatively quiet compared to Amazon’s decision to build headquarters in Long Island City, New York, and Arlington, Virginia. The local and state governments at each location offered Amazon incentives worth millions of dollars. Dozens of other locations across the U.S. competed for Amazon’s attention with tax credits, infrastructure investment and other favors. President Donald Trump gave credit to Amazon for and owner Jeff Bezos for the antics. “I think they’re paying a very big price,” Trump said of Arlington and New York City in a November interview with The Daily Caller. “It was a competition. I know all about those competitions. I’ve been in those competitions —…

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