The Fort Worth Way Runs Deep With Corrupt Cronyism

A few days ago on the Mary Kelleher blog I read a blogging titled You Make the Call...Cronyism or Not! where Mary Kelleher described an instance of wanton cronyism to which she objected at the most recent TRWD Board Meeting.

Mary Kelleher's questions about the cronyism were pooh poohed by the TRWD Dictator, I mean, Manager, who Mary Kelleher refers to as Mis-Manager, Jim Oliver.

Apparently Oliver does not understand what cronyism is, because he tried to claim that Mary Kelleher's relationship with campaign contributor, Monty Bennett, was cronyism.

Clearly Jim Oliver does not understand what cronyism is.

As you can see, via the definition above, cronyism is the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.

You know, like how without consulting the TRWD Board, Dictator Oliver hired an unqualified Assistant Tarrant County District Attorney named J.D. Granger to be the Executive Director of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

That is a case of classic, corrupt cronyism.

And why cronyism is frowned upon due to the bad results which frequently follow.

Results like a boondoggle.

The thing with corruption of the TRWD sort is those involved in the corruption don't think they are doing anything corrupt, because they do not get called on it by anyone with the clout to make it stop. Yet one more example of how Fort Worth suffers due to not having a real newspaper doing real investigative journalism.

In other words, the TRWD, as it operates in Texas, could not get away with its corrupt shenanigans in my old home state with its multiple real newspapers. And a well educated progressive population of voters.

If an election took place in, let's say, Seattle, where a ridiculously out of proportion number of absentee ballots showed up, with the result of the election giving two controversial characters a landslide win to a level never seen in previous elections for that position, well, there would be a clarion call for an investigation.

In Fort Worth, nary a peep. Not from the Star-Telegram, not from the Fort Worth Business Press, not from Fort Worth Weekly.

Maybe the FBI is on the case. We can only hope.

Did the Star-Telegram ever share with its readers the notoriously corrupt act of cronyism in which a TRWD Board Director finagled a sweetheart deal to use TRWD public funds to rescue a bankrupt friend by paying double market value for said friend's contaminated land on which the first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century was built?

Corruption and Cronyism runs deep in Fort Worth.

Real deep.

It is part and parcel of that which is known as The Fort Worth Way.

This will not change until Fort Worth gets a real newspaper and the people of Fort Worth cease being sheep.

The South has a long history of the type corruption that is considered perfectly normal by way too many in Fort Worth and its environs.

Back in the last century, next door neighbor to Texas, Louisiana, had a politician named Huey Long who operated in the Fort Worth Way.

A book and movie sort of based on the Huey Long story, named All the King's Men, is instructive regarding corrupt cronyism. The King in All the King's Men is Jim Lane, I mean, Willie Stark, played by Broderick Crawford.

Willie Stark was quite popular with the voters, for awhile, bringing all sorts of vision to his bleak state, running roughshod over those who did not share his vision. Eventually meeting an untimely end, an end more dire than the criminal investigations I suspect may be in the future for Fort Worth's Willie Starks....

Fort Worth's Mayor Mike Moncrief & All The King's Men

I watched the last hour, or so, of All The King's Men, whilst eating tacos this afternoon.

Blue corn tacos with tofu/beef and Wisconsin Sharp Cheddar.

I don't know why I digressed to tacos.

All The King's Men is about corruption in a southern state, I'm not sure which one. Louisiana? Texas?

Willie Stark is the Governor/King. Willie started off with good intentions, but gradually got more and more corrupt. And did ever worse bad deeds.

Willie was able to con the people with his platitudes and by building a lot of public works that he put his name on, like hospitals and roads.

I don't know if Governor Willie built any fake lakes from any rivers in his state. Or if he ran any bogus flood diversion channels to try and con some money from the Federal government.

Eventually impeachment charges were brought against Willie, which he successfully fought, only to be shot by one of the people he'd run roughshod over.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours with good citizens concerned about the corruption that permeates to varying degrees throughout the area known as the Barnett Shale, with the locus of corruption seeming to be Fort Worth and the county of Tarrant, of which Fort Worth is the county seat.

The corruption seems to spread, like a cancer, a malignancy seemingly impervious to any known treatment. Calls for the FBI to investigate go ignored.

Pointing out that the Mayor of Fort Worth, makes over $600,000 a year from the various gas drillers poking holes in Fort Worth, those being gas drillers who Mayor Moncrief helps in various sundry ways, which is clearly illegal, clearly a conflict of interest, seems to not matter.

Minimally Moncrief should have recused himself from having any part of any decision affecting any business from which he gains monetarily. Moncrief should have had to unburden himself of the conflicts of interest by divesting himself of any holdings in the gas driller companies.

And then there is the corruption in the boondoggle known as the Trinity River Vision. The vision has been being funded mostly by money that Congresswoman Kay Granger has been throwing Fort Worth's way via earmarks stuck on spending bills. That is now a big no no. Where will the TVR get money now?

Another point of obvious corruption regarding the TRV is the fact that Kay Granger's son, J.D. Granger, was put in charge of the TRV project, a job for which he had zero credentials. What Kay Granger did is what is known as nepotism. Nepotism is a big NO NO in civilized parts of America.

The TRV has never been put to a public vote. And yet eminent domain is being abused to take property for the supposed public good, purchased, I guess, with the ill gotten gains of those Kay Granger earmarks.

Near as I can tell, the cancer continues to spread, more politicians are being bought off in various ways, newspapers co-opted, even newspapers, thought to be safe from being co-opted, seem to have been corrupted and co-opted by the Bad Boy powers that be.

What can stop this ever growing cancer? I don't think radiation or chemotherapy is an option. Radical surgery seems the way to go. An honest person needs to penetrate the Good Ol' Boy Network and throw open the closed door, opening the books, naming names, pointing fingers, insisting on a Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation.

I thoroughly believe that Fort Worth will not be well until the various tumors are removed. I think the Mike Moncrief tumor is a very good place to start. How to go about that operation? I have no idea....