To Get His Vote Stenotrophomonas Wants An Abbott Rant About Taking Private Citizens' Rights

Earlier today I blogged about Greg Abbott's overstepping of Texas boundaries.

In that blogging I sort of indicated that I am a bit appalled at the idea that Texas may be electing yet another Republican as governor of their mighty fine state.

The rest of America should be concerned.

Both of the previous Texas Republican governors made a run at the U.S. presidency, with one of them winning.

Twice.

A mistake from which America is still recovering.

This latest possible Texas Republican governor seems to be the worst of the trio, to me.

After I blogged about Greg Abbott and his overstepping issues, Mr. Stenotrophomonas made a comment which pointed me to a project about which I was not familiar and which seems to do a good job at explaining why Greg Abbott should not be the next governor of Texas.

Stenotrophomonas has left a new comment on your post "Greg Abbott Wants To Hear My Ideas About Overstepping Texas Boundaries & So I Obliged Him":

I'll vote for Abbott if, within the next six days, he puts out a rant about Rule 37 exceptions and how they enable drilling companies to swoop in and take private citizens' unleased mineral rights.

Probably won't happen. F'ing crook.

Lone Star Project

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Texas has a terribly low voter turnout. I do not understand why this is the case. Voting in Texas is relatively easy, even with the controversial I.D. requirement. The poll workers make the experience quite pleasant. If a voter is confused by the video game machine one uses to early vote, the poll workers kindly explain how to work the gadget.

Are some Texans for some reason intimidated about voting? Is that why they've never voted? It really is inexcusable, in my opinion, for someone over the age of 18, not to vote.

With so many regular Texans not voting you get bad results, such as someone like Greg Abbott, or Rick Perry, being your governor.

The low voter turnout really is appalling. The results are often proof that voting does matter. As in, by voting you can either end up with someone like Greg Abbott as your governor.

Or Wendy Davis.

I don't see how any decent minded Texan would not conclude Wendy Davis is the better choice.

Both for Texas.

And America.....

Greg Abbott Wants To Hear My Ideas About Overstepping Texas Boundaries & So I Obliged Him

Why am I getting email from Greg Abbott?

Yesterday I voted for Wendy Davis to be the next governor of Texas.

I did not vote for any of the oodles of Republicans on the ballot.

Now, apparently, Greg Abbott wants to hear my ideas for stopping the federal government from overstepping its boundaries.

Huh?

What does that even mean?

What boundaries does this right wing nut job think the federal government is overstepping?

The boundary between Mexico and the United States? The boundary between Canada and the United States? The boundary between Texas and Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Colorado?

The email from Greg Abbott starts off with him telling me that he is opposed to the Bureau of Land Management's claims that a 90,000 acre piece of land along Texas' Red River now belongs to the federal government.

Is that the boundary Abbott thinks the federal government is stepping over?

Three sentences into the email Greg Abbott is telling me that we can't let the federal government swoop into Texas and take land belonging to private citizens.

Did I already mention this guy is a nut job?

Greg Abbott is worrying about the federal government doing some Texas land swooping? Where is his concern regarding the taking of land belonging to private citizens by the antics of fellow Republican Kay Granger and the abuse of eminent domain by the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle?

I guess the federal government did, sort of, enable some Texas land swooping with the TRV Boondoggle, due to Kay Granger securing some pork barrel funding, prior to that practice being halted.

With Kay Granger's pork no longer flowing into Fort Worth hasn't the reason for the TRV Boondoggle hiring professional party planner, J.D. Granger, gone bye bye?

Maybe if J.D. Granger were replaced with a qualified project engineer the TRV Boondoggle might develop some sort of project timeline, with a completion date, while speeding up the current four year time frame to build three simple bridges over dry land.

I seem to have digressed from the Greg Abbott for Governor of Texas subject.

I don't understand why Texans would elect yet one more Republican to be their governor. Four years of George W. Bush, followed by 14 years of Rick Perry.

Did the Texans who used to elect people like Lyndon Baines Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Barbara Jordan, Anne Richards,  Lloyd Bentsen leave the state?

When Rome started going nuts it was later learned it was due to lead leaching into the water supply.

Texas has some serious water contamination issues, mostly due to oil and gas drilling. Is it something in the water which has dumbed down the formerly Great State of Texas?

Very perplexing.

It Appears The Dallas Observer Observes More Than Fort Worth Weekly Observes About Greg Abbott Being One Of The Worst People

Last week I ventured into the store which is next to the newly opened ALDI on Eastchase Parkway in East Fort Worth.

At the entry to the next to ALDI store I found that a stack of Dallas Observers had made their way into the Fort Worth part of Tarrant County. I have found the Dallas Observer in the Arlington part of Tarrant County, previously, but never in Fort Worth.

I have read Dallas Observer a time or two or three over the years, but this recent exposure had me noticing something I'd not noticed before. As in the Dallas Observer has way more content to read than does Fort Worth Weekly.

Eventually I figured out why it is the Dallas Observer has way more content than FW Weekly.

The cover article of this week's Dallas Observer is titled "The 20 Worst People of 2013".

I thought this to be an amusing article, but was a  bit surprised at the national scope of where the worst people came from, rather than being Texas-centric. Only one or two of the worst people were Texan. With one of those worst ones being Greg Abbott, he being the embarrassing Texan currently employed, via election, as the Texas Attorney General.

Ted Abbott is running for governor of Texas. I suspect Fort Worth's Wendy Davis will soundly beat Ted Abbott to become the new Texas governor and in the process create a national sensation with tons of verbiage devoted to the return of Texas to being a blue state.

Yes, I am an optimistic dreamer with serious delusional bouts.

So, what is the reason the Dallas Observer has so much more content than FW Weekly?

I realized the reason why, via the online version of the Dallas Observer, when I saw that the cover article of this week's Dallas Observer was not a Dallas Observer production about the worst people of 2013.  It was an article written by Pete Kotz of the Riverfront Times, that being the St. Louis version of a Dallas Observer/FW Weekly type publication.

I suspect the Riverfront Times and many other publications across the country are owned by the same entity which owns the Dallas Observer, hence the content sharing, with more content in the publication than that which appears in FW Weekly.

Don't get me wrong. I really like FW Weekly and I think that publication does a real good job of being Fort Worth's only real newspaper, filling in for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram journalistic vacuum.

And now what is it that the Riverfront Times had to say about Greg Abbott, who came in at #11 on the list of worst people? I will copy and paste...

11. Greg Abbott
Dallas couple Jeffrey and Henry Buck were married in Massachusetts, only to see their love wither two years later. A Dallas family court granted their divorce.

This caused Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to blow a gasket. He's a strident opponent of gay marriage, fearing it will spur an outbreak of elegant kitchen remodeling that makes no allowances for gun racks. And because he's also running for governor, he wanted to appease the state's many followers of Mean Jesus, the pissed-off version of the leading brand.

So Abbott appealed the decision. Since Texas law banned gay marriage, he argued, the Bucks couldn't legally divorce either. A state appellate court agreed, reportedly signing its decision in drool.

Abbott got his wish: The Bucks were forced to stay gay married.

Wait? What?

The case is now before the Texas Supreme Court justices, who are expected to hire someone who can read it to them.

A Texas Story About Wendy Davis For Governor Has Me Slightly Optimistic

I really would not want to have the Republican label attached to me these days.

Even though it is the Democrats whose party symbol is the donkey, in modern day, 2013 America, it is the Republicans who seem to be the party of asses, of the dumb sort.

If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, like I do, to be amused regarding how delusional someone can become whilst blathering whilst inside an insulated bubble, you will have found yourself perplexed more than a time or two by Mr. Limbaugh railing on about how our current president, Obama, is destroying America.

On purpose.

With the Affordable Care Act.

While Mr. Limbaugh, stuck in his bubble, never has had any problem with anything Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush-league, actually did, which actually did do serious damage to America.

Damage which Mr. Obama has had some success in un-doing.

And now we are coming up upon the 2014 mid-term elections. That wondrous time between presidential elections when the electorate can register its approval or disapproval regarding what has gone on the previous 2 years.

I have no record of successful prognostication, but, even so, I am going on record, on this seldom read blog, with the opinion that the 2014 mid-term elections are going to result in a purge of Republicans to a level which renders the party of Lincoln the first major American political party rendered dead in well over a century.

As for the Wendy Davis for Governor of Texas campaign ad, above. I also think Texas is going to surprise the rest of America by going blue in 2014.

Walking With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Thinking About Replacing Kay Granger With Wendy Davis, Mary Kelleher Or Elsie Hotpepper

At noon today I took a short break from my maniacal website upgrading to go for a walk in the jungle with the Indian ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area in Arlington.

Seems like I was at this same location yesterday. Because I was. With the difference between yesterday and today being today I was in bi-pedal mode of the walking type.

Before I left my abode to go on a walk I heard from a fairly reliable source that today's Tarrant Regional Water District board meeting was having the board faced, once again, with a full house. And that full house was full of questions for the board members.

Questions that likely had board member Marty Leonard, she being the Fort Worth Dowager Heiress well known for clutching her pearls, clutching her pearls.

I wonder if any questions were asked about Jim Oliver's bad boy behavior, or about J.D. Granger.

Last week, or was it the week before, I read a very amusing paragraph that mentioned both Jim Oliver and J.D.Granger in an article written by Clyde Picht in the Fort Worth Business Press....

Needing a director for the TRVA with high qualifications – someone versed in construction, engineering and hydrology, to name a few essential skills – the water district’s general manager, Jim Oliver, went for the best. This being potentially a billion dollar project, Oliver zeroed in on the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office and found a tier 4 law school graduate working as an assistant DA. Selecting J.D. Granger to head TRVA was rather fortuitous because his mother, Kay Granger, happened to be a member of Congress and federal money was required for the key requirement of building a bypass channel and dams and hydraulic locks and all the really expensive stuff.

Succinctly stated like Clyde Picht stated it, one can not help but wonder how it is that the hiring of J.D. Granger, to do a job for which he had zero qualifications, is not some sort of crime of the punishable by fine and jail time sort?

And isn't it time for increasingly blue Fort Worth and environs, home of Wendy Davis, to replace Kay Granger with someone less, well, Kay Granger-ish?

I can think of three good Kay Granger replacements. Those being Wendy Davis, Mary Kelleher or Elsie Hotpepper.

Is It Time To Line Fort Worth's Carter Avenue With American Flags Again? Or Is Chesapeake Bluffing Again?

Something is going on here. What it is is not exactly clear.

But, near as I can tell, and I can't tell much, Chesapeake Energy is taking the advice rendered on the protest sign, at last Thursday's CARO Rally on the Tarrant County Courthouse steps, and is going to take their Carter Avenue Pipeline and shove it somewhere else.

It seems like I've heard this before.

But.

Near the end of last Thursday's Steve Doeung vs. Chesapeake Energy court date, after Judge Sprinkle indicated he had no choice but to sign the order granting Chesapeake Energy the right to run a potentially explosive, high pressure, non-odorized natural gas pipeline under Steve Doeung's home, and that Steve Doeung would have 30 days to appeal the ruling from the point in time when the Judge signed it, Steve Doeung then asked Judge Sprinkle to please take his sweet time in signing the order, because Steve had reason to believe that a significant announcement would be forthcoming that would obviate Chesapeake's eminent domain case, due to the Carter Avenue route no longer being needed.

At that point in the proceedings, the chief Chesapeake lawyer told Judge Sprinkle that he knew of no impending announcement which might affect the case.

And then, a few days after that, the Fort Worth City Councilwoman who represents the district Carter Avenue is in, Kathleen Hicks, had minions place letters in Carter Avenue resident's mailboxes. The letter was a sort of obtuse meandering that seemed to be somehow taking credit for something that was about to happen, which Ms. Hicks seemed to be indicating she had been working hard to bring about.

Even though Ms. Hicks has had no contact with Carter Avenue residents during this controversial period. Nor would Ms. Hicks answer questions posed to her regarding the Chesapeake issues.

And now, this morning I learn that, supposedly, once more, Chesapeake Energy and the Texas Department of Transportation has found an alternative route for the controversial pipeline.

The new route is the same route that was announced late last year, an announcement which sent Carter Avenue into celebration mode, complete with lining Carter Avenue with American flags.

TXDOT says the "new" route, running along Interstate 30, could be approved quickly, as soon as Chesapeake submits its plans for the route.

Councilwoman Hicks is quoted as saying, "The coordinated efforts by all demonstrate what we can do when we work together. The actions we have taken here are significant for other North Texas neighborhoods that are concerned about pipelines in their neighborhoods."

This latest iteration of TXDOT's pipeline policy supposedly came about due to pressure from the forementioned Hicks, plus Texas State Senator Wendy Davis and State Representative Lon Burnam.

Wendy Davis is quoted as saying that when construction starts on the I-30 pipeline, Chesapeake needs to return the right of way to the Carter Avenue property owners, saying, "Particularly, they need to back away from the condemnation against Steve Doeung. I feel like his family has suffered a lot of emotional trauma."

Well, I agree with Wendy on that. Steve Doeung and his family have been put through a Kafkaesque nightmare, complete with scary Gestapo Raids and lop-sided court hearings, where the victim is left helpless in court, defending, solo, his rights, against a powerful government/industry combine.

Is it time for Carter Avenue to bust out the flags again? I don't know. The last time the Carter Avenue flags went up, someone stealthily removed them under cover of darkness. This time, if the flags go up, I'd say it'd be a wise move to keep the flags on the home side of the sidewalk.

And. To whover it was who stole the previous flags, this time there will be 2 night vision cameras strategically located on Carter Avenue, covering the majority of the street. You may steal the flags again, but this time it will not be an Anonymous Operation.