Keep up with the award-winning Watchdog column, appearing twice a week at www.DallasNews.com/watchdog.
Read the story about The Watchdog’s 20th birthday here.
Consumer Protection against Scams and Fraud
Keep up with the award-winning Watchdog column, appearing twice a week at www.DallasNews.com/watchdog.
Read the story about The Watchdog’s 20th birthday here.
Dandy Don Meredith — The First Dallas Cowboy is a wonderful biography of the Dallas Cowboys quarterback and star of “Monday Night Football.”
Learn more at the book’s website — www.DonMeredithBook.com.
COPPELL, Texas – Ross Perot Sr. is coming back to life! Sort of.
The world premiere of Dallas Morning News Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber’s newest play – PEROT! American Patriot – Is set for nine shows in February at the Coppell Arts Center. Opening night is Feb. 11, 2022.
Theatre Coppell is producing the play in the city’s new $22 million arts center. Founder Wheelice Wilson Jr. is directing in the theater at the center named after him.
Lieber’s previous play – AMON! The Ultimate Texan – about Amon “Mr. Fort Worth” Carter was a hit and played 36 shows in six Texas cities before shutting down because of the pandemic.
In the new play, the Perot actor tells his remarkable story of how he started from scratch to build a family fortune estimated at $7.4 billion. But the emphasis is not on money, but on the family’s values and how love, business smarts and philanthropy were passed down from one generation to the next.
Nine shows are scheduled: Feb. 11-13, 18-20 and 25-27.
TICKETS ARE ON SALE at www.CoppellArtsCenter.org.
The play also has a companion book authored by Lieber – SEARCHING FOR PEROT: My Journey to Discover Texas Top Family. It’s the first Perot biography in 25 years.
The play/book website is PerotBook.com
Watch our brief trailer video here.
This is a positive life-affirming story about a legendary family that has changed the lives of thousands.
It’s an inspiring tribute that seeks to share the life story of Ross Perot with a new generation – and reminds his fans why they loved him so much.
(Hardcover, 1st edition, 192 pages, 60 photos.)
Get the book here.
First Edition || Hardcover || 192 [ages || 60+ photos
As author Dave Lieber points out, running for president is only a small part of the story behind this complicated Texas genius and his philanthropic family.
This Ross Perot story as told by Dave Lieber, a remarkable storyteller and journalist, is a grand saga of love passed down from generation to generation.
And along with that love came strong business values that built the Perot family ethos: Always pursue world-class excellence.
Get the book here.
Update on great Perot stories
Ross Perot Sr. could only have been made in America.
Born during the Great Depression into a happy, peaceful East Texas life, he became one of America’s most beloved billionaires.
Whether it was creating the computer services industry with his landmark company Electronic Data Systems, battling General Motors to build better cars, helping veterans or running (twice) for president of the United States, Perot was all in.
He woke up every day excited about who he could help and problems he could solve.
He organized a raid into Iran to rescue two top employees held as hostages in a maximum-security prison.
He revamped the Texas public education system. He and his wife Margot became masters of philanthropy.
He was called talented, driven, high-strung, generous, impatient, loving, energetic, impulsive and blunt.
As author Dave Lieber points out, running for president is only a small part of the story behind this complicated Texas genius and his philanthropic family.
This Ross Perot story by Dave Lieber is a grand saga of love passed down from generation to generation. And along with that love came strong business values that built the Perot family ethos: Always pursue world-class excellence.
Award-winning playwright and journalist Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist at The Dallas Morning News, masterfully captures this story of generational love, devotion and brilliance.
In doing so, he must overcome his own hesitation about some Perot business practices he witnessed and wrote about for a newspaper.
This is the first Perot biography in 25 years.
Join Dave on this venture into the never dull world of the Perots of Dallas.
Get the book here.
Reviews:
From Roger Summers:
“The fascinating Ross Perot story continues. Fresh set of eyes, thoughts, judgments. Sometimes, peeking behind the curtain.
“In this age of Shark Tank what Perot did then is instructive now for would-be entrepreneurs of today.
“Lieber calls the book Searching for Perot. Our conclusion: He found him.”
Get the book here.
In this Watchdog Nation training video below — sponsored by The Dallas Morning News — Watchdog Nation founder Dave Lieber shows the best way to stay on top of businesses, scammers and other 21st century life annoyances.
WHAT VIEWERS SAY:
“I always knew you were chock-full of useful info but had no idea you were so absolutely hilarious,” J.M. wrote me.
“I made my family listen to your five rules during dinner last night,” R.A. wrote.
“Loved the webinar. It was short and sweet and very informative.” K.B. wrote. “Thank you for educating us and entertaining us all at the same time.”
“I appreciate the wonderful, helpful content,” D.W. told me.
“Your steps are very clear and give us a great blueprint to not lose out. Thanks!” wrote B.T.
“I thought I needed a haircut, but you…,” M.G wrote.
This story about America’s number one medical mask maker — Prestige Ameritech — appeared in the April 3, 2020 Dave Lieber Watchdog column in The Dallas Morning News. Five days later Texas Gov. Greg Abbott agreed to send the Texas National Guard to work an added shift and produce two million masks a week.
When the history of the coronavirus epoch is written, The Watchdog hopes historians don’t neglect to mention Prestige Ameritech and its owner, Mike Bowen. The North Richland Hills company is America’s No. 1 maker of hospital surgical masks.
During this crisis, you’d think the company would be pushing forward on all cylinders, working 24/7 to manufacture the one commodity that Americans and the rest of the world want so badly.
You’d be wrong.
The company is only operating weekday shifts. You drive by nights and weekends and the employee parking lot is empty.
“People are curious why there aren’t any cars in the parking lot,” North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino told me.
And why is that, Mr. Mayor?
“The system got him,” the mayor said about Bowen, who is executive vice president of the company. “And he’s unhappy about it.”
The story of Bowen’s unhappiness is a cautionary tale about what can happen if Americans searching for cheaper prices send entire industries offshore to countries like Mexico and China.
Everything Bowen has warned about has come true. He warned that allowing another country to serve as our main supplier of personal protection equipment has the potential to become a national security nightmare.
Bowen declined to talk to The Watchdog for this story. He’s busy.
“There is 200 times more demand than there is supply,” he told former presidential adviser Steve Bannon on Bannon’s podcast. “My phone is ringing every two minutes. Every one minute I am getting an email.”
An examination of his warnings going back more than a dozen years tells the story.
The common theme is that during an outbreak like this, everybody wants to be his customer. But as soon as an outbreak subsides, his customers dump him and run back to China. The reason? His masks may cost a dime each, but a made-in-China mask might go for two cents.
“Last time he geared up and went three shifts a day working his tail off,” the mayor recalled. “As soon as the issue died, he didn’t have any sales. He had to pay unemployment for all these people, and he had to gear down.”
As Bowen explained to Bannon, “I’ve been preaching this American-made story since 2007. Nobody listened. The whole mass market was only interested in price. I’ve been everywhere trying to get people to listen. I’ve talked to congressmen. I’ve talked to generals. I’ve written the president. I wrote President Obama five or six letters, and he sent me a presidential proclamation suitable for framing.”
Bowen wants a guaranteed contract, not a proclamation. It’s tough to win a bid to supply U.S. hospitals through their group purchase agreements that seek the cheapest price when your competitor pays low wages, ignores environmental concerns and is subsidized by a Communist government.
Last month, he got another proclamation but no contract to go with it. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, named Prestige Ameritech the “Senate Small Business of the Week.” The citation notes that the company “has ramped up their daily production to 600,000 masks.”
The company could do so much more.
The company is in a building originally used by Kimberly-Clark to make medical masks. But that company moved its operations to Mexico. When Prestige Ameritech opened in 2005, it was touted as a great day for the made-in-America movement.
By 2009, the company had grown strong enough to meet the demand caused by the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. Hospitals promised to stick with him afterward, but they broke their promise. The allure of cheaper Chinese masks was too great for hospital purchasing groups to ignore.
In 2010, the company celebrated a grand “reopening” when it renamed its factory the Global Pandemic Preparedness and Response Center. The event was attended by then-Gov. Rick Perry, who said, “It’s good news for America as America becomes competitive back in this arena again.”
But the news wasn’t so good. The next year, Bowen and company president Dan Reese had to lay off 150 workers. Bowen told Wired magazine, “150 people that saved a lot of hospitals from closing their doors were rewarded by losing their jobs. And that’s not going to happen again.”
The company nearly went bankrupt. In 2012 the company took out a million-dollar loan.
Mayor Trevino recalls escorting Bowen around the Texas Capitol in Austin as Bowen made his case with state lawmakers for more government support.
“He was begging them to understand that we shouldn’t have all our masks made in China. He wanted a federal government contract that would keep him in steady business,” the mayor said, adding that Bowen wanted to help build a future stockpile for a pandemic that Bowen predicted would happen.
Trevino recalls Bowen saying, “If y’all don’t care about me in good times when everybody’s OK, how am I going to be there when you need me?”
The city wrote letters on his behalf to federal lawmakers, Trevino said.
“Everything he was saying fell on deaf ears,” the mayor said.
Or as Bowen asked in a 2017 Dallas Morning News interview, “If the government doesn’t even buy American, who will?”
In that same interview, Bowen showed stacks of dismantled office cubicles.
“Every one of those represents somebody who used to have a job,” he said, adding that he nicknamed an empty, unlit corridor in his factory the “hall of death.”
He’s tired of being “the backup guy,” he said. “Create American jobs. Buy American. … It’s hot air.”
That’s why if you drive by America’s No. 1 mask maker on a night or weekend, the parking lot is ghostly. But the lot isn’t completely empty. There’s a North Richland Hills police car parked outside near a police observation tower. The mayor said the business has received threats.
Bowen told CBSDFW.com that he could only make about 1 million masks a day if he ran his machines 24/7. He said that would have little impact on global demand.
He told Bannon he is ramping up, but it takes weeks to build new machines and train employees. His company’s street sign announces it is hiring.
The company is not selling to the general public or to non-American buyers. Now, it’s only selling to U.S. hospitals. But Bowen asks hospitals to sign contracts. Who can blame him?
Or as the mayor puts it, “He’ll gear back up, and he’ll produce, and they’ll probably do it to him again.”
READ MORE STORIES BY THE WATCHDOG.
Photo by Tom Fox, Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column by Dave Lieber won top prize in the nation’s largest column-writing contest.
The contest judge noted: “Through a lively combination of consumer advocacy and investigative reporting, Lieber’s columns were models of suspenseful storytelling and public service.”
You can read his winning columns: 1) helping the widow of Officer J.D. Tippit, the Dallas police officer killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, get buried beside her late husband, and 2) helping a waitress who was harmed by an unscrupulous used car dealer.
The 2019 contest was sponsored by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
Dave Lieber, a certified professional speaker, is the author of eight books.
His newest book is AMON! The Ultimate Texan. It’s the story of “Mr. Fort Worth” — Amon Carter who owned the newspaper, radio station AND TV station and ran the town for 50 years.
Dave’s play of the same name debuted at Artisan Center Theater in Hurst, Texas in May 2019. It was an immediate hit, with 16 sell-out performances. The play is now on hiatus as producers plan to bring the play to Fort Worth. Learn more at AmonPlay.com.
Looking for a fun speaker for your group? Dave’s motivational, inspirational and delightful talks always bring results and smiles to conference planners and audiences.
When my wife and I picked up Christal Scott at her Dallas restaurant at the end of her waitress shift (her planned ride canceled because of bad weather), she was bitter about humanity.
With good reason.
She’d been without a car since July because of her duel with 1and2 Automotive in northwest Dallas. Her car was snatched back by 1and2 in what she called an illegal repossession. She lost her $5,100 cash down payment, too.
She sued the used car dealer in small claims court, and stood up to co-owner David A. Kost Jr., whom I call the King of Car Repossessions. The day of that trial, Kost told me many of the 200 cars he sells each month come back to him. (Note: This story first appeared in the Jan. 19, 2018 Dallas Morning News.)
It was quite a courtroom scene. No lawyers. Just the single mom, 43, still wearing her all-black work uniform and platinum blond hair tied back in a ponytail, going toe-to-toe with Kost, 39, shaved head, goatee, untucked shirt, jeans and boots with a silver chain around his neck.
“I was a mess that day,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what to ask him. It was really scary.”
She won. A jury awarded her $2,000. She hoped to use the money for a down payment on another car, but, as of Thursday, Kost has not paid.
We were driving to a car dealership in Plano, but Christal didn’t know exactly why. She’d find out soon. A surprise of a lifetime. For the moment, the Irving woman was sour on life.
“Everything you do nowadays is a ripoff,” she said. “You can’t trust anybody at all. Not businesses. Not anybody. Nobody is honest. Everybody is so greedy.”
She’s worked at the same restaurant for 11 years. She has no family other than her disabled son. She’s street-smart and savvy.
She’s also brave. By herself, she took on what The Watchdog calls one of the worst used car dealerships in Dallas.
The pattern, shown through my reporting, is that 1and2 Automotive customers often find their desired cars on Craigslist. But when they arrive at 1and2 at the corner of Reeder and Joe Field roads, they’re told sorry, that car sold 20 minutes ago.
A salesman points the buyer to a more expensive car and asks to see cash to make sure the customer is serious. The cash is dropped in an office safe. Salesman says he can’t get it out. You just bought a car.
Kost, who owns 1and2 with his father, David A. Kost Sr. (hence 1and2), told me customers can get the money back in a check, but it takes two weeks.
That scenario happened to Christal and also to Dalwan Washington, a single mom whose story I shared. She lost her car because she missed a $275 payment by a few days. She, like Christal, was confused because it turns out the contract language calls for biweekly, not monthly payments.
Christal thought she was making a monthly payment of $450 but it was actually supposed to be $900 a month on a Camaro, a car she felt forced to buy after they snatched her life savings of $5,100 and dropped it in the safe.
If you come back to the dealership to complain, staff puts you in what Kost calls “the manager’s room.” I call it “the scream room.”
Kost said, “If someone is in my showroom and they’re yelling and screaming, what do you do? You can do whatever you want to in this room. … The thing that upsets them about this room is their voice doesn’t go very far [even] if they yell and scream.”
Makes you want to buy a car, huh?
We arrived at Ewing Buick-GMC on Dallas Parkway in Plano. General manager Jeff Gaden was waiting with a smile — and a surprise.
Four anonymous donors, after reading about Christal’s plight, stepped forward with more than $12,000 in contributions. It’s a bit overwhelming.
Gaden happily said that he would sell her a 2012 Honda Accord (one of the best cars ever made), black to match her waitress uniform, with 65,000 miles.
“Are you serious?” Christal asked, fighting back tears.
Gaden sold it at wholesale, so Christal has no payments.
The Buick GM told her why. “We appreciate you standing up in court.” Auto dealers, he said, “try to keep a good name. That’s important to us for someone like you to stand up.”
Asked what lesson she wants to share, she agreed.
“The lesson is to stand up and fight,” she said.
She sat in the driver’s seat. “I’m ready to drive. It’s been so long. … No more Uber or Lyft.”
“You told me people were kind of rough and mean. And that you couldn’t trust anybody,” I reminded her.
“Yeah.”
“You still think that way now?”
She answered quickly.
“Nope.”
Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation plunged into the debate about Texas independent school districts with a series of riveting stories. Catch up on all the education stories here.
These stories originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column.
Here’s a look at modern school life through the eyes of two students (2020)
A through F grading system for Texas public schools is one more way to stigmatize poor neighborhoods
Watchdog: Grading schools? Not if school districts can help it
How a school district uses its power to tilt a tax-increase election in its favor
State lawmaker says Texas school board members get ‘indoctrination’ into groupthink culture
Dishonor roll: Former FBI agent turned Texas public school investigator sees corruption up close
Watchdog: Texas school boards team up against change
Watchdog: Crying poverty from inside Frisco ISD’s Grand Palace
Watchdog: Superintendent shows how school districts crush critics
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Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun website: DaveLieber.org
Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation works to change the mindset of Americans about how easy it is to fight back and win.
The way to do this is with stories that show how others have achieved victory against corporate thugs and scammers.
Watch this funny TED talk video and learn how Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Dallas Morning News, tells stories that move people to action and change.
See how Dave Lieber’s “Magic V-Shaped Storytelling Formula” helps others in this testimonial.
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More Watchdog Nation News:
Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes
America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview
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Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun website: DaveLieber.org
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