The Eleventy Billionth Blog

An Open Letter to the DMN Editorial Board:

Today we find on the pages of the Dallas Morning News that Mayor Tom Leppert is a bastion of ethics reform, and the soon-to-be-voted on rules were all his idea.

Let's be clear: Angela Hunt proposed it first. The mayor came in later, acted as if it was his idea, and then tried very hard to ram a watered-down version designed to placate voters through the machinery at City Hall.

So to praise Leppert for this nearly toothless bit of spun sugar is as believable as praising the Pope for the Bible. To rail against Hunt and say she was trying to stop the vote - when it's already been reported in your own paper that it was a) her idea and b) she merely wanted more teeth in the thing - is disingenuous at best and patently misleading. 

Sunshine is Lovely, Clean Your Windows

It's been a scant week since the trial that ultimately pulled a curtain back to reveal that everyone has a price, including city officials, and just about everyone - you'd think - would agree that Dallas' windows are dirty.

Government - like glass - is meant to be transparent. Yet we've learned that not only have some lobbyists and officials have rubbed the dirt on to obscure the view, but that just about all of them are perfectly content to continue to do business just like it's been done for years, apparently - even though one of their most promising former members is looking at serious time in the pokey now indirectly because of it.