Free speech questions raised by ethics agency’s sanctions on senator, former County Judge
Austin Sen. Sarah Eckhardt was admonished for wearing a pink knitted hat during a commissioners meeting and making a joke about Gov. Abbott’s paralysis.
AUSTIN In a rare decision, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct has taken disciplinary action against Sen. Sarah Eckhardt for actions dating back to her time as Travis County Judge, raising questions about free speech for county judges.
The public admonition, as first reported by the Austin American-Statesman, noted that Eckhardt wore a pink knitted “pussy hat” a key symbol of women’s rights in 2017 that also referenced President Donald Trump’s leaked remarks about grabbing a woman’s genitals while presiding over a commissioners court meeting.
Dallas County is set to launch its first “mega” public COVID-19 vaccination site next week at Fair Park, where thousands of people a day can be inoculated against the virus that is fueling the deadly pandemic, officials said Thursday.
If the county gets the doses from the state in time, the aim is to vaccinate people who don’t have regular access to a doctor
starting Monday. Shots will be administered at the Tower Building and an adjacent facility.
People can sign up online to get the vaccine. Younger family members and those with internet access can assist those who need help registering, officials said. More than 50,000 people registered in the first 48 hours after Dallas County launched the site Saturday.
He said they arrived at a Dallas hospital at about 11:20 that morning, and hours passed before he’d hear from his uncle again.
“I think it was around about 5:30,” said McClean. “He sends me a text message and then he calls, and he’s getting kind of antsy because he hasn’t seen a doctor yet.”
A few more hours passed. By then, his uncle had made up his mind that he’d waited long enough. He left the hospital before being seen by a doctor.
“He had just left the hospital and he was going to take the DART rail on home because he never was called, and he was tired of waiting,” he said.