Bob Schieffer Warns Fort Worth Corruption Will Rise Without Real Newspaper

Last night I got one of those worrisome Facebook messages telling me I have been tagged. This always sounds slightly threatening to me. This time, as it often does, the tagging came from Elsie Hotpepper.

The Star-Telegram had printed one of its patented bizarrely ironic articles, an opinion piece titled Schieffer: Corruption will rise if local news organizations aren’t here to fight it.

The obvious irony, made obvious just by the title, even before you get to the ironies in the article, is that Fort Worth is already rife with corruption due to having no local newspaper of the shining a light on truth, justice and the American Way sort.

In other towns in America, towns with real newspapers, local corruption, such as nepotism, would be made a criminal legal issue. In such a town with a real newspaper questions about corruption would be asked of a local congressperson if said congressperson benefited financially, or personally, by advocating an ill conceived, ill actualized pseudo public works project the public never voted to approve.

The Facebook posting about this Star-Telegram article generated a lot of comments. I share some below, giving you a clue that not everyone in the readership area ill served by the Star-Telegram are sheep, cluelessly unaware of the corruption which has corrupted their town.

A sampling of those comments, with a few from me, the second of which was made after I actually read this latest embarrassing Star-Telegram propaganda...

Aaron Harris: I think this is a satire piece...right??

Elsie Hotpepper: I can’t stop laughing long enough to finish reading it.

Fort Worth Mayor
 Betsy Price

Mary Kelleher: It has to be a satire piece! Wow! Our mayor!

Melissa McAdoo-McDougall: It is laughable! They never cease to amaze me.

Chris Putnam: Is this The Onion???

Durango Jones: You people really should consider cutting this elderly man some slack. It is highly likely his delusions are senility or Alzheimer related. He probably thinks Betsy Price is his grandma, and Fort Worth is New York City, and the Star-Telegram is the New York Times. Or some equally sad, pitiful confusion. Or maybe the old guy can no longer read and has no awareness that the Star-Telegram does not function as a real newspaper covering real local issues, let alone the wanton corruption which so obviously corrupts the town that sad newspaper so ill serves....I'm done now....

Durango Jones: Ugh. I have now actually read this Scheiffer opinion piece. I do not think Mr. Scheiffer has any awareness of the fact that the newspaper he worked at years ago has become the very type newspaper he warns about. Corrupted by a strange hubris which has the Star-Telegram functioning as some sort of perverse propaganda organ of the Chamber of Commerce sort, spewing delusions and ignoring, well, not investigating and reporting on obvious corruption. Things like acts of nepotism which should not, would not, happen in a town with a real newspaper. How long would J.D. Granger and his mother last in a modern American town with a real newspaper? A town like New York City, Or Seattle. Or Denver. Or Portland. Or Phoenix. Or San Francisco. Or Austin....

Elsie Hotpepper: Someone...needs to write a note to the new girl and let her know instead of writing about ‘coaching salaries’ maybe be she go downstairs and look around.

Durango Jones: Elsie Hotpepper--- New girl? Go downstairs? What does that mean???

Elsie Hotpepper: Durango Jones---the new girl running the ST. She needs an open letter telling her no one buys this crap for a reason, about a billion of them.

Durango Jones: Elsie Hotpepper--- Is this new girl an actual real journalist? Or just another, well, toady????

Elsie Hotpepper: Durango Jones---we’re about to find out. The ST has a very long history of shoving one sided propaganda down our throats. Ask them to write a ‘fair’ article on your Congresswoman, her baby and their 13+ year, billion + dollar project. Just one.

Crickets Chirp while Fort Worth Politicians Promise Bridges Where There Is No River

This morning I was searching for a photo of Nikita Khruschev and Shirley Maclaine when I came upon that which you see here.

A quote from one of my favorite dictators of the Soviet Union, the aforementioned Nikita Khruschev opining....

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river".

Well.

Guess what came to my mind when I read what Nikita had to say?

If you guessed an American town building bridges where there is no river, proudly trying to build these bridges over dry land, you know, to save money, when there will never be water under those bridges until a ditch is dug under them, with water added to the ditch, well, you guessed right.

How Fort Worth's governing morons got away with spewing that ridiculous lie, the bridges being built over dry land to save money lie, has appalled me for years now.

The three simple little bridges were being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island because there was no funding to pay for digging the ditch into which the Trinity River could be diverted. And if that ditch had been dug at the same time the bridges were being built there would be no water in that ditch until the Trinity River was diverted into the ditch.

In other words, there never was any other option than to build those three simple little bridges over dry land.

And yet the BIG LIE about the bridges being built over dry land in order to save money.

Repeated over and over again.

I point you to the Wikipedia article about the Big Lie for instructive insight into how propaganda works in a town like Fort Worth.

Fort Worth lacks any real newspaper doing this thing called journalism, reporting on this thing called news. Well, all the news. Fort Worth's fake newspapers do cover murders, mayhem and the rare construction of a new downtown Fort Worth building, and other things which do not contradict the party line of the good ol' boy network which runs Fort Worth in what is known as the Fort Worth Way.

In other words, run the town with a large dose of delusional propaganda.

So, unless I missed it, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth Weekly and Fort Worth Business Press have all failed to investigate, and report on, what has gone wrong with the building of those three simple little bridges.

What was the design problem which caused the long construction halt? What was the alleged solution to this design problem which allowed the slow construction to supposedly resume?

It was way back on Tuesday November 11, 2014 I blogged about a big TNT big boom announcing the three month late start of bridge construction at a big celebration hosted by those aforementioned Fort Worth government morons, such as Mayor Betsy Price, Congresswoman Kay Granger, and Granger's embarrassing son J.D., he the master of stupidly ironic quotes and Executive Director of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, of which those three simple little bridges are only one part.

I forgot to mention, when that TNT big boom marked the start of bridge construction those three simple little bridges being built over dry land had a four year construction timeline.

Four years to build three simple little bridges.

Over dry land.

Longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge, over deep, fast moving water, and other actual feats of engineering. Such as actual signature bridges built over the actual Trinity River in Dallas. Or the new Dallas Cowboy stadium, in Arlington.

The Dallas Cowboy stadium, also built over dry land, also costing over a billion dollars, would seem to be a more complex engineering effort than Fort Worth's three simple little bridges being built over dry land, and the rest of Fort Worth's vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, which has been boondoggling along for most of this century, built in slow motion, even though, you know, it's a vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme.

And an apparently lifelong employment opportunity for Kay Granger's son who had zero experience directing a project such as what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

I wonder if there is any connection between this project becoming an embarrassing boondoggle and the project's director being an unqualified embarrassment?

There is one thing the construction of the new Dallas Cowboy stadium and Fort Worth's embarrassing boondoggle have in common. Both outrageously abused eminent domain to take property from its owners, including both bulldozing property whilst the owners still had not had their say in court.

But, with a big difference. Four years later Arlington saw a big new stadium and a Super Bowl where all that private property was taken.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth crickets chirp...

Arlington Pit & Fort Worth Wall Of Shame Examples Of Civic Irresponsibility

I saw that which you see here this morning on the front page of the online version of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Clicking the headline Creek erosion pits Arlington homeowner against school district actually worked, with the Star-Telegram allowing me to read the article without insisting I become a subscriber.

In that article I learned about a big pit growing from a creek in an Arlington resident's backyard, with the creek part of land owned by the Arlington school district.

A month or two ago I blogged about a Fort Worth erosion nightmare known as the Pulte Wall of Shame. I blogged about this in Why Is Fort Worth's Best Public Servant Ignoring The Pulte Wall Of Shame?

The best Fort Worth public servant being referred to is Fort Worth mayor, Betsy Price. As far as I know Fort Worth's best pubic servant has still not checked out the Pulte Wall of Shame, or directed the city to do anything about this growing menace.

The Arlington mayor apparently is slightly more deserving of a best public servant accolade, due to at least paying some minimal lip service to the nightmare being endured by one of his constituents. We learned this in the following paragraph in the Star-Telegram article...

Tinderholt and Scism have enlisted Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams in their cause. Williams said he has seen the erosion behind her house and found it distressing, but he said there are many others facing major erosion problems around the city.

So, apparently neither the Arlington School District or the City of Arlington can do anything about a growing pit that gets closer to swallowing a home with each incoming storm.

Has the Star-Telegram reported, yet, on the Pulte Wall of Shame? Has anyone seen any mention made in the inner pages of that dwindling newspaper? I believe Fort Worth Weekly has also ignored the Pulte Wall of Shame, despite pleas by those affected for some sort of journalistic help.

Why would the City of Fort Worth, and its highly esteemed mayor, turn a deaf ear to something like a golf course's giant wall in the process of crumbling and tumbling onto Fort Worth resident's property?

Is the owner of the golf course a member of Fort Worth's ruling oligarchy, known locally as the Good Ol' Boy (and Girl) Network? Is Betsy Price, or her husband, or one of her many minions, somehow invested with a vested interest in the Eagle Golf Club Fossil Creek?

Why would a city wearing its grown up pants totally ignore a failing wall which was allowed to be built with substandard construction techniques approved by city inspectors?

When the Pulte Wall of Shame comes tumbling down, with property damage and possible loss of life, how BIG of an increased liability will the city face due to ignoring the many pleas to do something about this problem?

Making certain all the water features in the Fort Worth Water Garden were safe would have saved Fort Worth a lot of money, rather than waiting til one of those features turned into a Drowning Pool before fixing an obvious problem.

Very perplexing.

Equally perplexing is how could any legit media operation declare Betsy Price as being Fort Worth's Best Public Servant in its annual Best of edition? That is sort of like a damned by faint praise type thing. Because if that woman is the best Fort Worth has in the public servant department, well, it seems that is a big clue why the town has so many problems.

Problems like a severe sidewalk shortage and America's Biggest Boondoggle come quickly to mind, along with other problems I could probably think of if I took a minute or two to think about it.

Oh, I know, the majority of Fort Worth city parks have no modern plumbing. That's right, the city that is the envy of the nation has America's highest number of outhouses populating its city parks.

Would it not be a good thing if Fort Worth ever had itself a public servant of the mayor sort who was an advocate of things like sidewalks, modern facilities in the town's parks, public transit of the modern sort, easy access to help for citizens with problems like crumbing walls and an open mind, heart and ears?

I know, never gonna happen. Which is yet one more example of how I am a doomed eternal optimist partially braced for the horrific nightmare that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could be the next president.....

A Stormy Floating Bridge Has Me Freshly Perplexed By Official Fort Worth Nincompoopery

Someone reading this who is in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone may be thinking what they are seeing here is an artist's rendering of what it may look like if America's Biggest Boondoggle ever finishes its bridges connecting the mainland to an imaginary island, with the flood diversion ditch under the bridges filled by a flooding Trinity River.

Well, that body of water is not the Trinity River, it is Lake Washington, which would make that bridge the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, during the Big Blow that blew in a couple weeks ago, on Saturday, August 29.

I suppose I should now turn this into one of our popular bloggings about bridges constructed in less than four years.

Over water.

For those new to the program, the reason we look at bridge building projects, built over water, built in four years, or less, is due to the amazingly embarrassing fact that America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision, last October, celebrated with a big bang, the beginning of construction of three simple, little bridges, being built over dry land, with a four year project timeline. After which, if funding can be found, a flood diversion ditch will be dug under the bridges.

The propaganda spewing con artists who have foisted this project on the locals have gotten away with claiming the bridges are being built over dry land so as to save money by making construction easier, when the obvious fact of the matter is there will be no water under the bridges until the Trinity River is diverted into the newly dug ditch.

The ditch is not currently being dug because there is no money to pay for it. America's Biggest Boondoggle is not funded in the way most public works projects of this sort are funded, with the funding in place before the project starts, with the project having a project timeline.

America's Biggest Boondoggle has no projected finish date for this supposedly vitally needed flood control and economic development project.

Meanwhile, up north, well northwest, the bridge building project which will replace the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge is well underway. The first of the new bridge's pontoons moved into position on August 11, 2012. The new bridge is scheduled to open in April of 2016. This bridge project is a bit more expensive than America's Biggest Boondoggle's project, with it forecast to cost, when all is done, $4.65 billion. That includes the new bridge, plus improvements to I-5,  I-405 and SR-520.

The bridge the new one is replacing was real cheap. It cost only $21 million in 1961 dollars, around $150 million in 2015 dollars. The original Evergreen Point Floating Bridge opened to traffic on August 28, 1963, taking three years to build. Over water.

I really don't understand why the Fort Worth locals don't revolt against the embarrassing Nincompoopery of their elected officials, like Mayor Betsy Price. Or the Nincompoopery of un-elected officials, like J.D. Granger.

What does it take for the locals to say enough is enough? Is the reason why the locals don't revolt the reason Elsie Hotpepper has suggested to me? As in, way too many locals are un-questioning sheep, willing to follow the leader into floating in an e.coli polluted river?

How have those behind America's Biggest Boondoggle gotten away with the obvious lie that the reason those three little bridges are being built over dry land is to save money?

It is all very perplexing, and I for one do not agree with those who think the explanation is that way too many Texans are poorly educated, and thus a bit ignorant. I think the reason lies elsewhere, but my quest to find the answer really is quite exhausting, and I am not making much headway....

What Rank Does Betsy Price Hold In The Fort Worth Army?

That is the honorable mayor of Fort Worth, Betsy Price, you are looking at here, looking very stern and serious, with that stern and serious look being totally appropriate, what with the explosive military-like operation Betsy is overlooking.

Yesterday, after I blogged about the TRWD bragging about enabling people to jump in the Trinity River, someone named Anonymous made a blog comment which soon had me watching Betsy Price watching what looked to me like a military operation.

In plain clothes.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Thanks To The TRWD Fort Worth Is The Only Town In Texas Where You Can Jump In A River":

Off topic, but thought you would enjoy seeing our local leaders having a BLAST! Our City, Our Firearms! I guess it raises more $ than a bake sale.

The Anonymous blog comment included a link to a YouTube video which you can watch below.

The local leaders having a BLAST, to which Anonymous refers, in addition to Betsy Price, includes Betsy's predecessor, Chesapeake Energy's puppet,  Mike Moncrief.

In the video Betsy and Mike sing the praises of Fort Worth's army, I mean, SWAT team, which they, of course, believe to be the very best in the nation.

In the video there is some lamenting about the SWAT team being underfunded and needing money. I think this event must  have been some sort of fund raiser, which explains the "bake sale" part of the Anonymous comment.

Don't bullets and bombs cost a lot of money? There are a lot of guns being fired a lot of times during the course of this explosive video.

Does Fort Worth have a big need for a SWAT team army? The only horrific incident I can remember since I've been in Texas which would seem to have been SWAT team worthy was the Wedgewood Baptist Church murder of 7 young people, with an additional 7 injured before the killer Larry Gene Ashbrook killed himself.

The Wikipedia article about this tragedy makes no mention of Fort Worth's SWAT team being involved.

How much does Fort Worth spend on this little army, I can't help but wonder?

I also can't help but wonder if other town's SWAT teams engage in events of the sort you will witness in the video below?

Today I Heard Betsy Price Talk About A Non-Existent Island & A Bridge Over Dry Land Before Walking Around The Fosdick Sea

What a beautiful day in North Texas, blue sky, 77 degrees, with me having a mighty fine time walking around Fosdick Lake in Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park, this last day before the incoming icy Arctic Polar Bomb.

This morning I heard Fort Worth's Mayor, Betsy Price, on the radio, touting today's ground breaking ceremony for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing.

I wish I could remember exactly what Mayor Betsy said, due to its unfortunate goofiness, but it was something like "today we are having the ground breaking for a bridge over dry land which will one day connect to Panther Island, our 800 acre development that one day will generate a billion dollars in tax revenue."

The reference to "a bridge" as in one bridge, struck me as odd. Is the cash strapped Boondoggle, at this point in time, only able to start building one of its Three Bridges Over Nothing?

This constant referring to a non-existent island as "Panther Island" bugs me.

Why do the powers that be in Fort Worth constantly have to hyperbolize? Calling this chunk of land Panther Island is just going to confuse Fort Worth's few tourists, just like calling its downtown Sundance Square, where there was no square til one was finally built, after decades of there being no square in Sundance Square.

Anyway, after having heard Mayor Betsy refer to the non-existent island I was soon walking around  Fosdick Lake. This had me pondering, what with the Fort Worth penchant for hyperbolizing, why not rename this little body of water as the Fosdick Sea?

Fort Worth's Mayor Betsy Price & Arlington's Mayor Cluck Think Congress Does Not Want A Water War

Today I learned there is a website "Where lawmakers come to blog" called The Hill's Congress Blog.

I did not know mayors are lawmakers or members of Congress.

Maybe they aren't.

But, for some reason Fort Worth's Mayor Betsy Price and Arlington's Mayor Robert Cluck have joined together to write a blog post titled Congress doesn't want a water war.

Apparently the Supreme Court is about to hear a water rights case in Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann.

Regarding this, the mayors wrote...

With unprecedented peacetime deficits, massively underfunded entitlements, issues of war, peace and national security, Congress’s plate of big issues is full. But another giant helping of trouble may be coming after the high court hears Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, a case that will determine the future of interstate water rights.

The concerned citizen who emailed me about the Mayors' Blog, this morning, wondered what in the world "massively underfunded entitlements" are. Entitlements like what? Food stamps? Medicare? What entitlements are being massively underfunded? Pre-natal care in Texas? What?

The final paragraph of the Mayors' Blog succinctly sums up the problem...

So here is the problem — and it’s a big one. Water is the West’s single most critical and historically most fought-over resource. If the high court upholds the Tenth Circuit, who will be left to put back together sixty years of compacts? Only Congress. The fights could continue for decades.

The past 24 hours, water, and the Tarrant Regional Water District, have been coming across my radar screen. Yesterday I blogged about an FW Weekly article titled Liquid Power, about the TRWD and the upcoming board member election.

In the Liquid Power article we learn that Jack Stevens was the only current TRWD board member willing to talk to FW Weekly. Apparently Jack Stevens "praised the water district and the board for actively seeking new water supplies, including in Oklahoma and East Texas, and for promoting water conservation techniques."

And then TRWD board member Stevens said, “The Tarrant Regional Water District ought to be given a couple of gold stars for what they’ve done for conservation. The people of Fort Worth have really embraced conservation of water even without having the mandatory water restrictions. We have enough for quite a while, but we need more, and that’s what we’re doing.” 

The people of Fort Worth have embraced water conservation? Is this statement pulled from the same propaganda purveying service that claims things like a new Police & Fire Fighter Training Facility will make Fort Worth the Envy of the Nation. Or that Fort Worth is one of the World's Greatest Cities?

In the past year I have seen multiple water pipeline breaks flooding water into the creek that flows into Fort Worth's Fosdick Lake and into the creeks that flow through the Tandy Hills.

I do not see all that many Fort Worth lawnowners who water their lawns. More often I see lawns turn brown in summer.

With so much alleged TRWD concern about the water supply why has the TRWD sold millions upon millions of gallons of water to Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers, who mix the water with chemicals, then shoot it into the shale?

I think one of the many good reasons that the TRWD needs some new board members is those new board members, if they are John Basham, Mary Kelleher, and Timothy Nold, they will push for full transparency, full freedom of information.

If John Basham, Mary Kelleher, and Timothy Nold get elected there is a chance the public may learn for the first time how much water has actually been sold to the gas drillers and how much money has been paid for that water.

If the supply of water in North Texas is so precious why would water be allowed to be wasted by fracking? What if the gas drillers had been told they could not use the fresh water supply for their fracking, that they needed to build a water pipeline to pump water north from the Gulf, to use for fracking?

And now North Texas, courtesy of the TRWD, is taking a Water War all the way to the Supreme Court?

It is all very perplexing....

Mayor Betsy Price Thinks Fort Worth Will Once Again Be The Envy Of The Nation

A couple minutes ago I got email from Facebook telling me that MW, aka Mr. Galtex, had tagged me on Facebook. That sounded serious to me, getting tagged.

So, I logged in to Facebook to see I'd been tagged with an alert about Fort Worth's Mayor, Betsy Price, who has resurrected some Fort Worth verbiage that I thought had been rendered extinct, due to its tendency to cause giggling.

Then I got another email telling me that someone named Anonymous had made the following comment about the same subject...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Damp Driving Texas Roads With No Sidewalks & Dangerous Telephone Poles": 

Fort Lurch is once again the envy of the nation.

From the article: Fort Worth breaks ground on $97.5 million police, fire complex

"We will be the envy of the nation," Mayor Betsy Price said. 

I am really curious as to what it is that is so special about this new police and fire training center that Betsy Price thinks the rest of America is going to be envious of it.

The painful reality is most of the rest of America knows pretty much nothing about Fort Worth, let alone knowing about something in Fort Worth that might make someone envious.

Now, do I want to go to the bother of adding this latest Green with Envy, Envy of the Nation type nonsense to my Green With Envy webpage?

Maybe I will let blogging about Fort Worth again being the Envy of the Nation suffice.

Did Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price Shoot Congresswoman Kay Granger At The Party In Fort Worth?

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price's Pirate Entourage

I did not see the scene on the left when I was at Saturday night's The Party In Fort Worth, held in Fort Worth's private party club, the taxpayer paid Fort Worth Convention Center.

The only person I can identify, for certain in the scene, is Fort Worth Mayor, Betsy Price, who seems to be packing heat, which she appears to be firing in the direction of a pirate who appears to be, possibly, Fort Worth's notorious Congresswoman, Kay Granger, also known as Queen Earmark.

If that is Queen Earmark getting shot on the right, would that make the pirate standing on the left Fort Worth's poster boy for nepotism run amok, Kay's baby boy, J.D.?

All I know for sure is this is the first instance of a Fort Worth mayor engaging in gunplay in downtown Fort Worth since Fort Worth's former mayor, Mike Moncrief, shot up downtown Fort Worth with his fellow gun nut, Texas Governor, Rick Perry, in shots seen around the world.