So how much do you know about Nate Paul?
The two of us asked each other this question back in the summer of 2019, when Nate Paul s spots got raided by the FBI. Over the years, we d both acquired some knowledge about Paul and his World Class property empire that we hadn t seen in other coverage, enough to know that something about the story was really odd – his coming out of nowhere to acquire a set of high-visibility properties all over town, without evident plans to do anything with these assets, and then running into heavy financial weather almost immediately. Ken Paxton is now nearly a household name across America – the ostensibly Christ-centered heir to the legal activism of his predecessors John Cornyn and Greg Abbott, always at the front lines of culture-war clashes, and in 2020 devoted to raising up Donald Trump and slapping down Texas and especially Austin Democrats in equal measure.
Margaret Moore to lead the newly formed
Ci
vil Rights Division in 2017, will stay on as one of a small number of Moore hires who will continue working under Garza. (
Guillermo Gonzalez, Moore s Trial Division director, will also remain in his position.)
In some ways, the prosecution of two high-profile cases involving LEOs – the killings of
Michael Ramos on April 24, 2020, and of
Javier Ambler on March 28, 2019 – will serve as a test for Gilford. Garza s administration has faced pressure from the victims families in both cases to seek justice, and the public will be watching the outcome of each prosecution closely. How these cases are handled will help inform whether or not Gilford is a good fit for Garza s new vision for a D.A. office focused on improving accountability of law enforcement while decreasing the number of people entering the system.
1) Jan. 13: Red Guards Ambush Heidi Sloan The Democratic Socialists of America organizer and candidate for Congress in the TX-25 Democratic primary was waylaid and threatened by militants associated with the ostensibly defunct Maoist group Red Guards Austin, highlighting stress fractures at the leftmost edge of Austin politics even as the influence of DSA-aligned progressives surged in an increasingly deep-blue Travis County. Sloan would lose her race to the also very progressive Julie Oliver, who set up a rematch with GOP incumbent Roger Williams.
2) Feb. 23: Bernie Sanders Rolls Through Town As Texas found itself a pivotal state in the 2020 presidential primary, candidates with Austin connections, including (one-time UT prof) Elizabeth Warren and (friend of Mayor Adler) Pete Buttigieg, made late swings through town, but none drew a bigger crowd than Sanders, who was widely expected to pick up most of the locally awarded delegates and who, at this point, was the national front-runn