John Jay getting jacked?

When people ask why more people don't run for office, this is a good example.  Seems WFAA doesn't want to include other candidates in their debate.  WHY? 

Number 5 is our favorite.  Good luck to the real candidates out there.  If you ain't got money, you're going to need luck.

WHO decides an election?  How can you vote for a candidate you don't know exists?

I sent an email to WFAA in regards to why I am not included in their debate, in return we got a form letter which listed 5 criteria that they use to judge whether I should be included. This is my reply to that:

I believe the main thing to consider is, am I a valid candidate, with valid issues, running a real campaign, who has ballot access? The answer to those four is yes. I would ask you how do you believe the public hears about a candidate? You can google Paul Sadler right now, if you don't include coverage of simply the fact that he is the Democratic nominee and that the news has made it a contest between him and Cruz, I am wildly more popular. Do the same thing with our Youtube channels. If I were mentioned anywhere near as much as Sadler I would be polling at 40%.

Here is your criteria with my numbered response:

 · Receives significant levels of public support in independent public opinion polls (e.g. 15 percent, which is the minimum used by the Commission on Presidential Debates).

1. Can you list the polls that you are using that have included my name? Obviously if my name is not included in the polls it's pretty hard to get a sense of where I stand.

· Has received substantial campaign contributions from varied sources.

2. We have received over $11,000 in campaign contributions most of it in $20-50 increments, from all over Texas. As you know, this also means that we have met the FEC threshold.

· Has received a substantial level of votes in prior elections for the same or comparable office.

3. I don't believe I have ran for a comparable office. I also do not believe that during any other election the media has ever mentioned my name.

· Expected to be reported by news agencies in election night returns.

4. This criteria doesn't make sense, this is more like the news... making the news. You should just cover candidates.

· Has received significant news coverage from a wide range of media outlets.

5. Kind of self fulfilling prophecy here isn't it? The media ignores you and then tells you that they ignore you because you don't get enough media. The media tells you that you do not poll well enough, but does not include you in the polls.

But I would suggest we have gotten coverage. We didn't start our campaign until after the primaries so we wouldn't have to combat the media hype with our limited resources, little did we know that the media outlets would consider the election over after the primaries. We did a tour of Texas last week with our staff, and had a reasonable amount of coverage. I imagine if the media mentioned my name every once in a while most of the criteria you have listed would be met.

Here is some press from last week: http://johnjaymyers.com/press/

Thank you for this list, it will be helpful with our filing with the FCC.

The media should not be in the game of political manipulation. I would imagine both Cruz and Sadler have already appeared independently on your channel, probably numerous times.

If you understood how hard it is just to achieve ballot access, and then how hard it is to run a campaign when the media ignores you, you might be more sympathetic. You have set up a system where there can be no winning, not without millions of dollars. I do not believe that is the foundation this country was based on.

I do understand having reasonable criteria for a candidate to be considered. I believe I have met standards that would be considered reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

 As a news source you can not say "Do they have a chance of winning?", you must say "Do the people of Texas deserve to know about all of the valid candidates in the race" it is your job to inform about elections, not determine them.

Paul Sadler does not inspire the Democrats, my anti-war, pro civil liberties message does. Ted Cruz only fires up the hard core right, I will win over the Ron Paul people and the independents. I make this race interesting, otherwise you are just handing it to Cruz.

Thank you,
John Jay Myers

SInking Ship?

The FW Weekly tells you about the staff jumping ship from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

We wonder if Mitch's first column will be about the Trinity River?

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s edition of the Star-Telegram misspelled “education” on the front page.

Really??

North Richland Hills is one of the many cities planning to raise their tax rate.  How many people spoke about it at the council meeting?

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram -

ZERO.

Nice work, NRH. 

WHO??

WHO actually thought the Republican National Convention would be any different than the cluster recently held in Fort Worth?

While we have contributors from all political parties, even some of our R's think it's BS. 

That sound you hear is folks jumping ship.

We never agree with Bud

But today, he made us laugh.

(And finally, someone else takes notice of where a lot of comments around town come from.)

Although he made us laugh, we have to ask, isn't he part of the problem? Does he not make up part of the Editorial Board that tells you to vote for the same "idiosyncrasies" over and over again? 

See, it's funny.

Unsigned, from a Yahoo.com e-mail address:

"Why don't you just leave? You seem so convinced that everything about our state makes us laughingstocks.

"Every state has its own idiosyncrasies."

(Yes, but in Texas we re-elect our idiosyncrasies.)

How much do they cost YOU?

Think Cabela's is the only sporting goods store costing YOU? Think Fort Worth is the only city that bought it hook, line and sinker?

Not even. 

Remember those average citizens who tried to stop the madness of giving them millions of YOUR tax dollars?  Remember they were ignored by the ones supposed to protect your tax dollars?

Don't miss this article about government financed businesses, YOU can't afford to.

An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found that the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.

"Retail is not economic development. People don’t suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders because a new Bass Pro or Cabela’s comes to town," says Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-partisan economic development watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. "All that happens is that money spent at local mom and pop retailers shifts to these big box retailers. When government gives these big box stores tax dollars, they are effectively picking who the winners and losers are going to be."

Typically, these stores are financed through familiar economic development schemes like tax increment financing districts. Basically, a city borrows money by selling bonds on Wall Street and then pays off the debt with the increase in property or sales taxes generated in that TIF district.

After analyzing the development agreements, state audits, bond issues, development studies and local news accounts the Franklin Center found:

• Cabela’s has received $551 million in local and state assistance during the past 15 years.
• Bass Pro Shops received $1.3 billion in local and state assistance during the same period.
• The federal government helped ensure liquidity for Cabela's' credit card division by providing $400 million in financing for the purchase of the company’s securitized debt.

For example, state and local taxpayers borrowed $60 million to build a Cabela's store and its supporting infrastructure in Buda, Texas. For that amount, every household in the 7,600-person community could have purchased a new 2012 Lexus CT Hybrid.

The Buda City Council even agreed to take the town's name off its water tower and replace it with the word "Cabela's." But government largess didn’t end there. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission provided Guadalupe bass, the official state fish, for the store's massive aquarium at no charge to the retailer.

Conservatives with their hands out...

So according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article, we need that money our politicians earmarked (such a conservative thing to do, right?) to fix our crumbling infrastructure. By the end of the story, it's a different story.  According to the City (M&C below), we need it to relocate infrastructure.  Pesky stuff, is expensive and in their way.

"There are a lot of crumbling roads, crumbling bridges, crumbling transit projects. We're ready to put the money to work now," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said during a news conference call. "There is pent up demand to fix infrastructure."

Mendez also said he spent part of Friday morning talking with officials in the office of U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, about transportation needs related to the Trinity River Vision project.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/17/4188412/texas-risks-losing-31-million.html#storylink=cpy9. M&C C-25554 - Authorize Execution of Change Order No. 1 to City
Secretary Contract No. 42360 with Conatser Construction
TX, LP, in the Amount of $115,630.00 for a Total Contract
Amount of $1,365,227.00 for Water and Sanitary Sewer
Main Relocations for the Trinity River Vision - Central City
Project and the Trinity Uptown Service Area Phase 1 -
Bridge and Channel Relocations, Part 1 Henderson Street
Bridge Water and Sanitary Sewer Relocations (COUNCIL
DISTRICTS 2 and 9)

(Earmarks are a strategy often used by members of Congress to push pet projects forward. Often, it involves inserting a sentence or two of language into a bill that may or may not have anything to do with the bill's main purpose.)

9. M&C C-25554 - Authorize Execution of Change Order No. 1 to City
Secretary Contract No. 42360 with Conatser Construction
TX, LP, in the Amount of $115,630.00 for a Total Contract
Amount of $1,365,227.00 for Water and Sanitary Sewer
Main Relocations for the Trinity River Vision - Central City
Project and the Trinity Uptown Service Area Phase 1 -
Bridge and Channel Relocations, Part 1 Henderson Street
Bridge Water and Sanitary Sewer Relocations (COUNCIL

Trophy Club MUD fined for Effluent Violations

The taxpayers in Trophy Club are being required by TCEQ to pay $50k in fines plus the cost to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant because of chronic violations for e coli, CBOD, etc from 2007-2012.

This is surprising since Trophy Club MUD Director Jim Thomas claimed that the MUD's water woes were "wrapped up" and Director Kevin Carr claimed he was "insulted" in response to a formal ethics complaint about these violations in 2009.

So the taxpayers who "insulted" the MUD Directors by asking them to stop these violations in 2009 are now being asked to foot the bill.  Does that sound right to you?

TCEQ Enforcement Letter

Well, what do we have here?

First of many?

WHERE are the others?  WE want to talk to them.

Read about the lawsuit against the Tarrant Regional Water District in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  Here's hoping the Fort Worth Weekly covers the story so we'll get all of it.

Wouldn't you like to know WHO the managers and employees were that were looking at the obscene photos.  YOU have a right to know, after all, YOU are paying THEIR salary.

Two former Tarrant Regional Water District employees are suing the agency for wrongful termination, contending that "increased tension" in the office began after one of them caught agency managers and employees looking at an obscene cellphone photo.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/16/4187107/fired-employees-sue-tarrant-water.html#storylink=cpy

Really?

The two gas drilling companies that didn't research the property they bought, or get the proper permits did studies and came to the conclusion they aren't to blame.

What's new?

That's like paying universities to say fracking doesn't cause any harm.

WHEN are people going to wake up?  When it's their property?   Sounds about right.

Read about Mary Kelleher's lastest flood fiasco with Fort Worth in the Fort Worth Weekly.

Ethics, what ethics?

The Fort Worth Weekly does a bang up job describing Fort Worth's lack of ethics.  And what's to come.

Two years ago, members of the city’s little known and little used Ethics Review Committee found out what happened when you pissed off Mike Moncrief. The mayor tossed their board and major parts of the city’s ethical rulebook out the window.

Since the city council hires and fires the city attorney, there is no safeguard in place to keep the council from getting whatever opinions it wants.

“Millions of dollars in contracts and awards go out on a regular basis. Inside information on key areas for future city development is available to certain officials and businesspersons, but not to the average person. Friendships can color deals; so can animosity,” said Wechsler, research director for the nonprofit Cityethics.org.

The city council, he said, “simply defies anyone to bring them to task.”

Any takers?

Gas drilling affected landowners needed. 

Dear Star Telegraph,

Hello. My name is (EDITED). I am a graduate assistant/ law
student at Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston Texas.  I am
working with Professor Duruigbo a law professor at the school.

We want to host a focus group in Forth Worth/Dallas/Arlington at the
end of August that focuses on the economic impact of drilling for
natural gas through hydraulic fracturing on small landowners in Texas.

We will use the results of the focus group to propose appropriate
legal reforms in favor of the landowners. For this to be successful we
need to get landowners or homeowners in Forth Worth/Arlington/Dallas
involved that are affected by drilling companies.

If you know anyone who is interested, I am more than willing to
telephone or email them more information. Thank you for your time.

Just the facts...

Or just a joke.

A letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram puts it in perspective.

This is in response to Jim Witt's Sunday column, "Newspapers have secrets and mistakes." He says, "We've never given anyone the chance to change their quote before it was published."

I agree someone should not change their quote, but as far as accuracy of your reporters, that is a joke.

Over the years, I've been involved in about 10 articles written about various prison-related issues. All except one had errors in them. They weren't necessarily egregious errors, but names attributed wrong, slight misquotes, important info left out and misspelled names.

So it looks like accuracy takes second billing to having complete control. What would be wrong to let the article be reviewed before publishing to make sure the details are correct -- not to change the facts?

-- John Leonardson, Bedford

Whatever it is, it's going to cost you

Dallas is holding a press conference about their Trinity River Vision.

At least their 'news' paper is asking questions.

If the magic trees from the Fort Worth Trinity River Vision doesn't hold back the water, and Dallas's Trinity River Vision gets washed away...WHO pays?

Maybe the DMN will ask that question.

Fort Worth Air is Under Attack

Come Help Defend It 

The Only Hearing in the Nation on EPA's Proposed Weakening of Toxic Air Pollution Standards for all U.S. Cement Plants

Thursday August 16th

9 am to 7 pm

Arlington City Hall

101 W. Abram

How to Reserve Your 5-Minute Speaking Slot on the 16th:

E-mail the EPA's Pam Garrett at garrett.pamela@epa.gov or call her at (919) 541-7966. Tell the EPA what time you want to speak - morning, afternoon, or evening. They'll assign you a specific time so you don't have to wait.

Only News in Town

The Fort Worth Weekly gets a shout out on MSNBC for their article about earthquakes.

A funny one.  Check it out.

Kudos to the Weekly. 

As for the rest of you, "Times may be changing".

DFW Media can't count

How many candidates are running? Why did they not mention them all?

Read: Hey DFW Media! There's a Libertarian in the  race!

Here we go again...

If you thought Carter Avenue was going to be the only street they went after, well, you know the drill.

Urgent message from Don Young-----------

Subject: URGENT: City Council-Chesapeake must be stopped

The photo below was taken July 27, 2012, while standing in the front yard of my childhood home, 1105 Haynes Street, Fort Worth, Texas.

Until about a year ago, the prairie field that extended the entire block across the street, where kids like me flew kites and explored nature, remained unchanged. But about a week before Christmas, 2011, Chesapeake Energy received a permit to drill and frack "multiple gas wells" on the site.

Anyone can plainly see from the aerial photo below, this gas well should NEVER have been permitted. At about 300' away from where I took the photo, it's too close. More than 72 properties in this densely populated neighborhood are DIRECTLY affected. It is what the FW Drilling Ordinance used to refer to as HIGH-IMPACT before, at the drillers request, the phrase was discarded. But now it's too late. The City failed the neighborhood. The well is in.

Now. Now, Chesapeake is asking council approval for an 8" diameter pipeline that will run under homes and in front yards of this very low income, working-class, mostly Spanish-speaking neighborhood. The gas will be UN-odorized.

In an epic failure of leadership to protect innocent citizens, City staffers, Rick Trice, Randle Harwood and Fernando Costa have signed off on the pipeline that council will debate on August 7, 2012.

This pipeline proposal is even worse than the infamous, Carter Avenue pipeline that was changed only after resident and father, Steve Doeung refused to be bought off. But it took the persuasive efforts of Senator Wendy Davis, to help convince Chesapeake to pursue a less dangerous route which they ultimately did.

Will you PLEASE take a moment right now and contact your councilperson, Mayor Betsy Price and especially, District 8 City Councilwoman, Kelly Gray. Cut and paste the following to your personal email:

Options exist to reduce neighborhood impact of the Anderson gas well and pipeline. Either plug the gas well or find a better route. The lives of thousands of nearby residents are worth more than the $31,605.20 that Chesapeake is offering for the pipeline permit. Deny Chesapeake's permit request with prejudice.

Kelly.AllenGray@fortworthtexas.gov

betsy.price@fortworthgov.org

Already impacted by drilling and fracking, hundreds of families will be
at serious safety risk if the pipeline is approved.

Just days before Christmas, 2011,
the City of Fort Worth allowed this to happen.

Alternatives exist to this driller-friendly, neighborhood-killer pipeline route.

The Chesapeake owned, Anderson Padsite is one of many across FW that should have never been allowed.

Don Young

FWCanDo

P.O. Box 470041

Fort Worth, TX 76147

http://www.fwcando.org

"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."

For whom the bell tolls

We don't know where the quote came from, but after what we heard about the Republican Convention in Fort Worth and from what we witnessed leading up to it, all we can say is...finally. 

By the way, this isn't an endorsement on our part for a candidate or party, we're just glad that a new party is being born, hopefully it doesn't grow up to be as corrupt as the old one. 

Hey, New Old Guard, the kids are coming for you.  Move over, bacon...

"Ted's nomination sent a strong signal that a new conservative Republican Party is being born and, by 2016, principled conservatives will replace most leaders in Congress and the Party at the national, state, and local levels. GOP leaders should 'ask not for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee.' 

THIS is what happens when you pay attention

Thanks to TURF for looking out for Texas citizens.

The rest of you - do something....




IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 1, 2012

Anti-toll groups relish Campbell, Cruz victories
Opponents were key players in pushing tolls on Texas

(New Braunfels, TX - July 31, 2012) Anti-toll groups, the San Antonio Toll Party and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF), celebrated Dr. Donna Campbell's victory over pro-toll, 40-year incumbent State Senator Jeff Wentworth in Texas Senate District 25 at her victory party held at the Seekatz Opera House in New Braunfels.

"We're elated that Dr. Campbell gave long-time toller Jeff Wentworth the boot. We helped her polish up those boots with lots of grassroots support, and it paid off!" declared Toll Party and TURF Founder, Terri Hall.

San Antonio Toll Party did robo calls and Facebook ads on behalf of Dr. Donna Campbell educating thousands of district voters about Wentworth's long toll road record. Supporters also volunteered in a variety of capacities like hosting meet and greets, blockwalking, phone banking, and donating money to Campbell's campaign.

Wentworth sits on the Senate Transportation Committee and was the key to blocking pro-taxpayer measures advocated by TURF for the last three sessions. He also sits on the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) where Wentworth recently voted to toll 281 & 1604. This means two existing free main lanes will be turned into dedicated bus-HOV-toll lanes using tax money. So Wentworth not only tried to increase a host of road taxes in the legislature, but also voted to DOUBLE TAX San Antonians for roads they've already paid for with tax money.

"This is the first opportunity for our supporters to make an example out of the board members who recently voted to toll existing lanes on 281 at the MPO June 25. There was a TON of enthusiasm behind Dr. Campbell. She's just what we need to shake-up Austin to get a pro-taxpayer transportation policy in place in Texas," Hall noted.

For more info on Wentworth's pro-toll record, go here.

Cruz knocks off Dewhurst
In another key race, Ted Cruz, who received an 'A' rating in TURF's Voter Guide, defeated pro-toll extraordinaire David Dewhurst, who received an 'F' on TURF's Report Card on the 82nd Legislature, for the U.S. Senate seat to replace anti-toll Kay Bailey Hutchison.

"It's a great day for Texas taxpayers and this sends a strong message to both Austin and Washington: we don't want more taxes, especially to use roads we've already paid for with tax money. Enough is enough!" warns Hall.

WHAT

Is Bud Kennedy doing speaking at a Republican Club, again?

Didn't he piss 40,000 of them off last week?