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A little over a year ago, I made the decision to become a Republican.
As the mayor of Dallas, Texas, I knew this defection would put a target on my back for Democrat leaders, who tried to mock, ridicule and minimize my rationale. But I knew I was making the right choice because Democrats’ priorities were all wrong.
Looking back, Democrats should have taken my shift as a wake-up call. After all, I left the Democrat Party for the same reasons many people of color have left and will continue to leave: the chaos, financial hardship and cultural rot Democrat policies have spread across our nation.
TRUMP HHS COULD REVERSE BIDEN-HARRIS POLICIES ON GENDER TREATMENTS FOR MINORS
President-elect Donald J. Trump understands these concerns, which is why Democrats lost and why he won. So, it didn’t surprise me when Trump was re-elected president with unprecedented support from young, Hispanic and Black voters.
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Eric L. Johnson is the 60th mayor of Dallas, Texas, and he has a message for his former political party.
You see, my former colleagues in the Democrat Party just don’t get it. Trump speaks to our hopes and aspirations, not just our fears of liberal mismanagement. Like most Americans, we aspire to wealth, homeownership, quality education and the freedom to live our lives. We want law and order, lower taxes, peace through strength and leaders with resolve. And we’re not anti-immigrant but oppose open borders and illegal immigration that strains our social services and allows a criminal element into our communities.
This is because, more than anything, the citizens of our cities desire to live in safe neighborhoods.
That was what we cared about in the working-class Black – and yes, Democratic – community that raised me. But as a mayor, I began truly questioning my political alignment when Democrats embraced the “defund the police” movement. Dallas Democrat leaders stood silent when liberal protesters came to my home, while my children were inside, and demanded I stop supporting our police department. I stood firm and called for even more investment in public safety with a goal of becoming the safest major city in America. As a result, Dallas is now in its fourth-straight year of violent crime reduction.
This is part of why the election was not an anomaly. Trump made history by breaking the Democrats’ real blue wall: their grip on racial identity politics, which they’d used to maintain power for decades.
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But we all saw clearly what the Democrat Party has become these last four years. Under President Joe Biden, borders opened, inflation surged and disorder flourished in Democrat-led cities. Democrat leaders indulged wealthy liberal activists’ excesses at the expense of hard-working families wanting an efficient government that protects but does not burden them.
Americans expressed their frustration with the status quo, not just in rural communities but urban centers, too. Trump made efforts to engage voters in places Republicans of past decades had written off, like the Bronx, the metro-Detroit area and Milwaukee. Unlike Democrats, who took these communities for granted and merely paid lip service to inclusivity, Trump assured these communities they were integral to a stronger America.
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The consequences were clear: a noticeable shift from Democrats towards Trump in traditionally blue areas. Trump improved his performance in places like Chicago and Philadelphia and was the first GOP presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade County since 1988. His support also grew in New York, even in the Democratic stronghold of New York City.
The Trump movement’s impact extended to other contests as well. In California, voters supported propositions to increase penalties for theft and drug crimes. Even in liberal San Francisco, voters rejected chaos and chose a new path.
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Like most Americans, we aspire to wealth, home ownership, quality education and the freedom to live our lives. We want law and order, lower taxes, peace through strength and leaders with resolve. And we’re not anti-immigrant but oppose open borders and illegal immigration that strains our social services and allows a criminal element into our communities.
To put it plainly, voters are sick of a Democrat Party that prioritizes pandering over policy, political correctness over political action, and concern with personal identity over individuals’ real needs.
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President Trump’s mission is easy to understand: he wants to Make America Great Again. And he’s a leader who understands that to achieve this goal, we must have great cities. He has shown that he cares about solving problems in urban America, and as president his policies will help lead a revival of our country’s great cities, making them safe and prosperous again.
And through the new administration, working-class individuals will again feel at home in America’s cities – and in the Republican Party. I know I do.
A woman and the person suspected of killing her are dead after an incident led to an officer-involved shooting near Town East Mall in Mesquite on Saturday.
The Dallas Police Department (DPD) responded to a shooting call in the 9000 block of Markville Drive at about 10:15 a.m. A woman was found shot and taken to a local hospital where she died from her injuries.
DPD determined that the suspect fled the scene.
Around 11:45 a.m., Dallas Police said Northeast Division officers were conducting surveillance and located the suspect in a vehicle near the 18500 block of LBJ Freeway in Mesquite, which is right outside Town East Mall.
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Police said when they attempted a traffic stop, the suspect got out of the car armed and shots were fired.
They said no officers were hurt, and the suspect died on scene.
The shooting gave many busy mall shoppers some pause.
“I was just afraid about everybody else here, you know, like, there’s a whole bunch of families out here Christmas shopping, something else could have happened, you know,” said Alexander Evans.
“My friend and her kids are supposed to be meeting me here, so I kind of told her, I was like, ‘It might be best if you don’t.’ Just to be safe,” said Abby Rather.
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Mesquite Police are now investigating the officer-involved shooting, since it happened within their city.
Dallas Police said they are still investigating the homicide case.
They also said the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office responded to the OIS scene and will conduct their own investigation.
Dallas Police said The Office of Community Police Oversight also responded.
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Jason Robertson had two goals and an assist, and the Dallas Stars beat the Anaheim Ducks 8-3 on Friday night for their third straight win.
Roope Hintz and Thomas Harley each had a goal and an assist, and Oskar Bäck, Sam Steel, Ilya Lybushkin and Adam Erne also scored for the Stars. who are an NHL-best 13-2-4 on the road. Mikko Rantanen and Miro Heiskanen each had two assists, and Casey DeSmith had 23 saves.
Ryan Poehling, Beckett Sennecke and Mikael Granlund scored for the Ducks, who have lost four of five. Lukas Dostal gave up four goals on seven shots before he was pulled with 5:41 left in the first period. Petr Mrazek came on and stopped 14 of the 18 shots he faced the rest of the way.
The Stars’ eight-goal output tied a season high, matching their 8-3 win at Edmonton on Nov. 25, and was the most the Ducks have given up.
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Bäck gave the Stars a 1-0 lead with a short-handed goal 2:37 into the game after the Ducks turned the puck over behind their net.
Poehling tied it 55 seconds later, scoring in close on the rebound of a point shot by Radko Gudas.
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Hintz put Dallas back ahead at 4:42, getting a pass from Robertson in the slot, sliding backwards and firing a shot past Dostal for his 11th.
Steel pushed the Stars’ lead to 3-1 with 7:19 left in the first, scoring past Dostal while crashing into the net and dislodging it. The goal was confirmed after a review.
Harley made it a three-goal lead 1:38 later as he got a pass from Rantanen and scored from the right circle.
Robertson scored in front on a power play with 8:50 remaining in the second, and then put a backhander past Mrazek from the right circle 4 minutes later to make it 6-1. It gave Robertson a team-leading 22 goals.
Erne made it a six-goal lead with 1:30 left in the middle period.
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After Sennecke pulled the Ducks back within five 1:01 into the third, Lybushkin got his first of the season 41 seconds later to extend the Stars’ lead to 8-2. Granlund capped the scoring with 5:38 remaining.
Up next
Stars: Host Toronto on Sunday.
Ducks: Host Columbus on Saturday.
Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
Don Stone, a Dallas civic leader and strong supporter of the arts, died on Sunday. He was 96.
Angela Stone, Don’s youngest child, said her father was one of a kind, a rare mix of sweet and tough.
“He was just the most wonderful man I ever knew, just generous to a fault, smart, charming. He influenced so many people,” she said.
Stone gave widely across North Texas, including $500,000 to endow college scholarships for musically gifted Dallas ISD students. Stone also held leadership positions at several North Texas arts organizations, including the Dallas Public Library, Voices of Change, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Fine Arts Chamber Players, Orchestra of New Spain, the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, Shakespeare Dallas and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
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“He just believed that all of our lives would be so much poorer without music, art and theater. He said in our country we have the freedom to support whatever we want and that we needed to support the arts so that they would continue to exist,” Stone said.
Stone, a businessman who lived in Turtle Creek, worked for Sanger Harris, which later became Macy’s. He was a 2018 TACA Silver Cup Award honoree for his arts and culture advocacy in North Texas.
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Maura Sheffler, president and executive director of The Arts Community Alliance (TACA), said in a statement that Stone’s legacy will continue to inspire the local arts community.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Don Stone, a devoted champion of the arts whose leadership and generosity,” she wrote.
Stone’s wife of over 72 years, Norma, died in June. She was the one who first got her husband involved in the arts, according to their daughter Angela.
Michelle Miller Burns, the DSO’s president and CEO, said the Stones had a profound impact on the DSO.
“It is with such a heavy heart that I received news of Don Stone’s passing earlier this week. Don was a devoted patron, a donor and a board member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and his leadership and generosity really have helped shape the Dallas symphony across five decades,” she said.
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In 1980, Stone served as DSO’s chairman of the Board of Governors and helped launch efforts to raise $80 million for Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and secure architect I.M. Pei.
In 1997, the Stones launched the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund and committed $1 million to continuously support new works. Some of the works supported through the fund include this year’s world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s requiem For Everything You Keep Losing. The fund also supported a Grammy award-winning violin concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis co-commissioned with the Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Melbourne Symphony.
“I think it is rare for a couple who so firmly believes in the future of classical music and creating opportunities for new musical voices to be heard to really put support behind that in a meaningful way to fuel that process, to ensure that it can come to fruition,” Burns said.
She said the DSO will continue the Stones’ legacy by commissioning new works through the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund.
Stone is survived by his children Michael, Lisa and Angela, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The family will have a private funeral.
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Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, Communities Foundation of Texas, The University of Texas at Dallas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
