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Archive for March, 2015

ATC Director Troy Hebert rivals his boss in cold-hearted demeanor: fires agent who is recovering from heart attack

Posted in ATC, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Teague on March 13, 2015| 9 Comments »

Troy Hebert strikes again. http://www.atc.rev.state.la.us/commissioner.php

The controversial head of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC), who already has racial discrimination lawsuits pending against him after settling similar claims, has fired a veteran ATC agent while the agent was recovering from a heart attack after first having failed to do so while he was on active duty in the Coast Guard Reserve.

Hebert fired agent Brette Tingle of Prairieville by letter dated Feb. 9 which was hand delivered to Tingle’s home where he was convalescing from a heart attack.

Hebert took the action based on accusations of payroll fraud and misuse of federal grant funds after three investigations by two separate state investigative agencies cleared Tingle of any wrongdoing—and after Tingle, who is white, testified on behalf of three black ATC agents who filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against Hebert. Tingle said Hebert told him, “I’m going to f**k with Charles (Gilmore) first, then with Larry Hingle” in an effort to force them to leave the agency. Gilmore and Hingle are two of the three black agents who have filed suit against Hebert and ATC.

Tingle’s attorney, J. Arthur Smith of Baton Rouge, in an 11-page letter, has appealed the firing, accusing Hebert of “agency shopping” in his attempt to build evidence against Tingle in retaliation for his testimony in support of his fired colleagues.

Hebert’s tenure since being appointed by Bobby Jindal in November of 2010 has been tumultuous at best and disruptive to the entire agency, according to several agents who have talked privately—and publicly—with LouisianaVoice.

One of the most absurd rules put in place by Hebert was one which requires agents to spring to their feet and offer a verbal “good morning, Commissioner” whenever Hebert entered a room where agents were gathered.

Another order which conceivably could have placed an agent’s life in danger was his instruction to an agent who had been working undercover in bars in New Orleans in efforts to buy illegal drugs from dealers to cease undercover activities and to return to patrolling those same bars in full uniform.

Hebert’s accusations of payroll fraud stem from a GPS tracking system installed on ATC vehicles which Hebert said showed Tingle’s vehicle was at his home during hours he said he was working.

In leveling that accusation against his former agent, Hebert ignored that fact that Tingle often worked undercover in tandem with other law enforcement agencies, including the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office and the New Orleans office of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Together, they would conduct regular alcohol and tobacco compliance checks and it was commonplace for one of the agents to leave his state vehicle behind while conducting checks since using the state vehicle would defeat the purpose of undercover work.

When Hebert’s office was found out of compliance and ineligible for more than $100,000 in grant money from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Hebert laid the blame at Tingle’s feet even though the ATC compliance officer was Louis Thompson and not Tingle, attorney Smith said, adding that Thompson had been in charge of compliance for ATC for the entire 10 years that Tingle served as part of the DEA task force.

“These allegations are your third attempt to defame, intimidate and retaliate against Mr. Tingle,” Smith said, “because he has assisted and participated in the investigation and proceedings in connection with the EEOC charge and subsequent litigation in the case of Charles Gilmore.”

Gilmore is one of the black agents who has filed a federal lawsuit against Hebert and ATC.

Coincidentally, when the Jindal administration decided to go after former ATC Director Murphy Painter, the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR), which is over ATC, immediately launched its own investigation of Painter and federal charges of malfeasance were brought against him. He was subsequently acquitted and then won his own civil defamation suit against his accusers.

It was first shown by LouisianaVoice and later in his trial that the charges against Painter were retaliatory in nature and initiated by the Jindal administration after a dispute over his refusal to issue a permit to Budweiser to erect a tent at Champions Square across from the Louisiana Superdome. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/02/06/emerging-claims-lawsuits-could-transform-murphy-painter-from-predator-to-all-too-familiar-victim-of-jindal-reprisals/

Oddly, LDR, which has known of the Gilmore allegations since October of 2012, has yet to interview anyone about Gilmore’s claims or to initiate an investigation into the charges.

In his letter, Smith said the first attempt to bring charges against Tingle “was initiated when you (Hebert) employed (Baton Rouge law firm) Shows, Cali & Walsh to draft documentation based on one-sided and uncorroborated information. This purported ‘legal opinion’ was found to be unreliable by the Office of Inspector General (OIG).”

No surprise there. Shows, Cali & Walsh, which held 16 contracts worth a combined $3 million, skated perilously close to sanctions last year over evidence manipulation in the case of overheating on death row cells at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/01/03/baton-rouge-law-firm-with-3-million-in-state-contracts-faces-legal-sanctions-over-evidence-manipulation-in-angola-lawsuit/

“Your second attempt,” Smith continued, “was initiated in 2013-2014 when you sent a complaint to the OIG alleging that (Tingle’s actions) constituted a criminal mater.

“…OIG conducted an extensive investigation …and determined that your allegations were not accurate enough to be utilized in making a case of payroll fraud.”

Bear in mind here that Hebert is head of a law enforcement agency for the State of Louisiana and apparently does not have the capability of building a criminal case or even knowing what constitutes criminal activity.

Not that he hasn’t tried.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence supplied to you by the OIG, …you continued your campaign to defame, intimidate, and retaliate against Mr. Tingle by appealing to … the Louisiana Department of Public Safety (State Police),” Smith wrote.

“You again asserted your professed belief that your alleged facts rise to the level of a crime and you were again informed that your purported facts did not rise to the level of being sufficient to be utilized in a court of law.

“The practice of appealing to multiple investigatory agencies in search of an investigation that supported your ulterior purpose is known in law enforcement as ‘agency shopping’ and is improper,” he wrote.

Smith said that Hebert launched his first investigation into Tingle during the time when Tingle was on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard and that following a year-long OIG investigation, Tingle and Hebert were informed by letter that indicated no charges would be brought against Tingle.

Even as Hebert was telling Tingle that he intended to get rid of two black supervisors, including Larry Hingle, he was also instructing Hingle to investigate Tingle and Hebert later told Hingle to also investigate Tingle’s wife, also an ATC employee who had recently retired.

Hingle joined Gilmore and a third black ATC agent, Daimian McDowell in filing a federal lawsuit against Hebert, ATC and LDR on Oct. 2, 2012, and Tingle was listed as a friendly witness for the plaintiffs.

More details of the events in Hebert’s office will be forthcoming in a subsequent installment this weekend. Space simply does not allow this full story to be told in a single post.

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If life does begin at conception as claimed by Gov. Bobby, he may be constitutionally prohibited from seeking presidency

Posted in Courts, Economy, Elections, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Politicians, Transparency on March 11, 2015| 18 Comments »

Gov. Bobby has a serious problem.

Yeah, we know. We have to narrow that down a bit.

We already know about his ethical and moral problems. But more specifically, he has a major constitutional problem.

We’re not talking about the Louisiana State Constitution here; we’re talking about the U.S. Constitution.

And all you birthers out there who have gotten your innards twisted in knots trying to prove that President Obama is (a) not a U.S. citizen and (b) is a closet Islamist working from within to bring this country down, we have a new assignment for you along those same lines.

And you aren’t going to like it because this time the shoe is on the other foot, i.e. the right (as in right-wing) foot. What follows has been alluded to on several occasions in comments to blogs and online news stories but to our knowledge, no one has written extensively on the subject.

Now pay attention because this gets a little dicey and will require that you follow some logic and everyone knows by now that Gov. Bobby’s faithful followers aren’t very logical. They seem to prefer that he do their thinking for them.

It is common knowledge that Gov. Bobby has aligned himself solidly with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Gene Mills of the Family Forum. In fact, one might say that Gov. Bobby is joined at the left hip by one and the right hip by the other. Which hip doesn’t really matter.

In fact, not quite two years ago, Gov. Bobby even appointed Perkins to the Louisiana Law Enforcement Commission, though Gov. Bobby’s office, for whatever reason, steadfastly denied the appointment until it finally became the subject of national news. http://cenlamar.com/2013/09/26/bobby-jindal-appoints-unethical-hate-monger-tony-perkins-to-law-enforcement-commission/

About that same time, Gov. Bobby attended a Family Forum banquet and posed with Mills as the two held Mills’s “Gladiator” sword, whatever that is.

Bobby Jindal holding Gene Mills's "Gladiator" sword during last week's Louisiana Family Forum banquet

And just last month, it was learned that Gov. Bobby will be traveling to Israel next fall as the special guest of Perkins’ FRC. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/02/bobby_jindal_israel_tony_perki.html

Perkins and Mills, both personally and through their respective organizations, have continued to oppose abortion and to maintain that life begins at conception. That, of course, is their right but it’s important to point out here that Gov. Bobby is right there with them on this issue, even vetoing a bill that would have allowed contracts for surrogate births. In vetoing the bill, he said life is created by God, not a test tube.

In fact, Gov. Bobby has claimed that it is a biological fact that life begins at conception.

And therein lies his knotty little constitutional problem.

Are you keeping up? We hope so, because it’s about to get a bit more difficult to follow.

According to the U.S. Constitution, one must be a natural born citizen of this country to become president. And we concede that Gov. Bobby was indeed born in this country on June 10, 1971.

Without wading into the argument ourselves about just when life begins, it is nevertheless important to note that his parents immigrated to America from India when his mother was three months pregnant—meaning that while he may have been born here, he was actually conceived in India.  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/world/americas/22iht-22louisiana.7991675.html?_r=1&

So here’s the logic: If life begins at conception, a claim Gov. Bobby says is supported by biological fact (and remember, he was a biology major at Ivy League Brown University), and if he was conceived in India, then he would have to necessarily be considered a native of India and therefore constitutionally disqualified from seeking the U.S. presidency.

We know that’s a bitter pill for him and Timmy Teepell to swallow, but the facts are the facts—and they are supported by no less than biological science, according to none other than Gov. Bobby himself.

So, the way we see it, he’s in something of a pickle. He has boxed himself in, outsmarted himself, as it were. Consequently, he now has no choice other than to announce that he not only will not, but cannot, seek the Republican nomination for president because of that pesky little constitutional prohibition.

We are certain that a man of his unimpeachable ethics and high moral character would never wish to ascend to the presidency on the mere technicality that he was born in this country when it must be his inevitable conviction that his life began at conception—in India.

As an added twist to the plot, let’s consider the question of religion.

Some of Obama’s detractors, and there are many (and we’re not exactly fans either, for that matter), have tossed out broad hints that he may just be a secret Islamic agent in disguise with the intent of bringing down this country on behalf of his Islamic brotherhood.

But wait! Isn’t he a Baptist? No matter. That’s just his cover.

Well, then, what about Gov. Bobby?

That’s not fair, his supporters (mostly limited to his staffers by now) might protest. Everyone knows he is a devout Catholic. Why, by his own admission, he even performed an exorcism while a student at Brown.

And what about all those visits to the north Louisiana Protestant churches where he handed out those giant federal checks to communities during his first term?

Pretty clever, eh? Pose as a good Catholic, conduct an exorcism and even write a paper about it later like it was the real deal and then suck up to the Baptists just to support your cover. Quite the chameleon. But deep down, he could be a Hindu—like his parents. Why, his parents could have been dispatched to this country by the Hindu hierarchy with the express intent of grooming him for the presidency just so he could then dismantle the entire country in the same manner that he has destroyed Louisiana’s economy, higher education and health care and then hand the entire country over to India.

We have to be completely honest, however, and admit that scenario is not only lame, but downright ludicrous. Offensive? Maybe. Politically incorrect? Most definitely.

Frankly, we much prefer the life at conception disqualification theory. It smacks of just enough hypocrisy to fit Gov. Bobby like a glove.

Plus, if it gains traction, Timmy Teepell might even actually find it necessary to go out into the private sector and work for a living like the rest of us.

 

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Gov. Bobby’s misleading claims in USA Today op-ed piece mindful of 2011 TV ad on job gains in reelection campaign

Posted in Elections, Governor's Office, Jobs, Layoffs, Media, Politicians, Transparency on March 10, 2015| 10 Comments »

As we wrote in Monday’s post, Gov. Bobby appears to be quite adept at embellishing the facts when it comes to his claims of resuscitating a moribund Louisiana economy. But a seasoned politician should know better than to put claims out there that are so easily debunked.

Of course, we have to give him credit: he was apparently way ahead of the curve on using private emails to conduct public business. While the national media is obsessing over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account as a means of keeping the public in the dark, the Louisiana media, namely AP’s Melinda Deslatte, called Jindal and his staff out more than two years ago on that very issue. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/top-jindal-aides-use-personal-email-strategize

But back to the matter of Gov. Bobby’s pumping up his résumé. Back in September of 2011, LouisianaVoice cited his inaccurate claims in TV ads during his 2011 reelection campaign. https://louisianavoice.com/2011/09/29/jindal-plays-fast-and-loose-with-jobs-claim-tv-campaign-ad/

In those ads, he made all sorts of claims about the number of jobs created during his first term. He named 17 companies across the state, leaving the unspoken impression that each was a new company when in fact many were companies already domiciled in Louisiana that announced expansions which were, in all likelihood, already in the planning before he ever took office.

The ad flashed purported job gains for which he took full credit. But a closer look at the actual number of jobs as posted on the companies’ own web sites should have raised eyebrows then and certainly should result in anything he says now to being taken with a huge grain of salt.

For example, he claimed responsibility for the following figures (actual jobs created are in parenthesis):

  • 3,970 new jobs at the Foster Farms chicken processing plant in Union Parish (1,060);
  • 6,050 new jobs at the Nucor Steel plant in St. James Parish (650);
  • 1,570 jobs at Blade Dynamics in New Orleans (600);
  • 1,300 jobs at Globemaster in Covington (500);
  • 2,282 jobs at LaShip in Terrebonne Parish (1,000);
  • 1,253 jobs at DG Foods in Bastrop (317);
  • 1,970 new jobs resulting from CenturyLink expansion in Monroe (1,150);
  • 1,920 new jobs at the ConAgra sweet potato processing plant in Delhi (500);
  • 650 new jobs from expansion of Schlumberger oilfield equipment company in Shreveport (120);
  • 500 new jobs from Ronpak fast food packaging company in Shreveport (175);
  • 446 new jobs at Northwest Pipe (120);
  • 805 jobs at Zagis USA in Jefferson Davis Parish (161);
  • 880 new jobs from expansion of Aeroframe facility in Lake Charles (300);
  • 727 new jobs at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish (77);
  • 339 new jobs at the Northrop Grumman facility in Lake Charles (80)

In all, Gov. Bobby’s 2011 TV ad claimed that he created 25,425 new jobs through the Department of Economic Development when in fact only 6,729 new jobs were actually created, or about 26.5 percent of the total claimed.

And now, with Gov. Bobby flailing away like a drowning man in his desperate attempt to gain traction in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, makes a whole new laundry list of distorted claims in Monday’s USA Today op-ed piece that reads more like a campaign ad than a legitimate opinion piece.

We listed several of those in Monday’s post but overlooked one major claim, the inaccuracy of which came to light on Tuesday when LouisianaVoice received its monthly report from the Louisiana Department of Civil Service.

That report, which is a public record not controlled by the Division of Administration and Commissioner Kristy Nichols and thus, immediately available to any member of the public, is the monthly state employee layoff report and when comparing its contents with Gov. Bobby’s USA Today claim, the differences were quite striking.

You will need to scroll down to the third page to get to the meat of the report but the gist of it is that since Fiscal year 2008-2009, which started six months prior to Gov. Bobby’s first taking office, the number of state jobs abolished is 13,577 and the number of actual employees laid off is 8,396 (the difference is that were 5,181 of those that were vacant positions). ELIMINATED STATE POSITIONS BY YEAR

And, it should be noted, the bulk of those layoffs were the result of his giving away the state’s charity hospital system and, in the process, separating thousands of medical staffers from the state payroll.

That’s a far cry from Gov. Bobby’s spouting that there are “over 30,000 fewer state workers then when we took office in 2008.”

In fact, the actual reduction in the number of employees is 72 percent lower than the number he claims.

That’s 194 percent higher than his current approval rating of 27 percent.

It’s enough to make one wonder if the man is even capable of telling the truth—and that’s no embellishment.

 

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Early poll results indicate close races for governor, attorney general, but major PAC campaign cash hasn’t kicked in yet

Posted in Attorney General, Elections, Governor's Office, Vitter on March 9, 2015| 15 Comments »

The Oct. 11 primary election for governor is still seven months off but it’s never too early for conducting polls to see the early seeding of candidates and an early poll has shown a surprisingly strong showing by Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards of Amite. MARCH 6 POLL

The poll, dated March 6, was conducted on March 5 by Triumph Campaigns. A survey of 1,655 participants, it was the first public poll completed since two of the gubernatorial candidates launched paid media buys or since several public debates were held in that race.

The poll also measured voter preferences for lieutenant governor, attorney general and commissioner of insurance.

With a margin or error of 2.4 percent, Edwards trailed U.S. Sen. David Vitter by only two percentage points, 35 percent to 33 percent. A further breakdown shows Vitter with 23 percent “definitely” favoring him and 12 percent as “probable.” Edwards had 16 percent “definite” and 17 percent “probable,” the poll shows.

Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne is running third with 15 percent (8 percent definite and 7 percent probable), while Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle trails with 7 percent (3 percent definite and 4 percent probable). The remaining 11 percent were undecided.

Breaking the race down by political party preference, 53 percent favored a Republican candidate and 47 percent preferred a Democrat. The percentages were nearly identical on the question of which party best represents respondents’ point of view with 54 percent saying Republican and 46 percent leaning toward Republican.

The poll also reflects that 69 percent of respondents do not feel the state is headed in the right direction while less a third, 31 percent, feel the state is on track.

To the question of approval of the job being done by Gov. Bobby Jindal, 63 percent disapproved, 27 percent approved and 10 percent were undecided. The 27 percent approval rating represents a new low approval rating for the state’s mostly absentee governor who was out of the state a full 45 percent of the time in 2014, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate.

Of the respondents polled 54 percent were female and 46 male; 48 percent were registered Democrats, 35 percent Republican and 17 percent independent. 69 percent were white, 27 percent black, 1 percent Hispanic and 3 percent “other.”

For lieutenant governor, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden leads with 33 percent, followed by Billy Nungesser at 23 percent and John Young at 20 percent. State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas) had 4 percent.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell appears to be in trouble early on, locked in a dead heat with Democrat Jacque Roy at 30 percent with Republican Jeff Landry at 20 percent and the remaining 20 percent undecided.

State Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, with 45 percent, appears to have a solid lead for re-election over challenger Matt Parker at 13 percent. The remaining 41 percent were undecided. Those numbers could be skewed considerably should State Treasurer John Kennedy opt to run for attorney general but he is as yet unannounced.

Indeed, the numbers are expected to shift considerably in all races once the full-fledged media blitz is launched by the various candidates and as PAC money flows into the coffers of candidates favored by business, oil and other special interests.

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How is it that a national newspaper provides a forum for presidential candidate Gov. Bobby to promote his agenda?

Posted in Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Health Care, Higher Education, Incentives, Politicians, Taxes on March 9, 2015| 10 Comments »

It’s one thing when Gov. Bobby scoots off to Iowa or Georgia or appears at a CPAC conference or on Faux News to spin his laughable look how great I am distortions about the “Louisiana Miracle.” It’s quite another when respected publications like the Washington Post or the New York Times, or even USA Today (aka McNewspaper) allow him space in their op-ed pages to spread his bovine excrement.

Gov. Bobby’s latest attempt to give unsuspecting readers and blind loyalists in the other 49 states his view of Louisiana through those rose-colored glasses is an op-ed in USA Today in which he, apparently oblivious to shame or any sense of irony, bloviates that he has succeeded in his promise “to make the economy bigger and the government smaller” and that he accomplished “what the federal government has failed to do.” http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/08/tax-cuts-louisiana-gov-bobby-jindal-editorials-debates/24613069/

If you’re into gallows humor, you’ll love these excerpts from his piece which, if we didn’t know better, was written for Comedy Central rather than a national newspaper. Here are a few of the accomplishments for which he takes credit and which the rest of us somehow missed:

  • Balanced budgets. (WTF? Does a $1.6 billion deficit looked balanced to anyone else? Does patching the budget all seven years of his administration with one-time money appear “balanced”?)
  • (We have) over 30,000 fewer state workers, than when we took office in 2008. Well, not quite. The actual figures, according to the Department of Civil Service, show that 13,577 positions have been abolished and 8,396 state employees have been laid off. The difference between abolished positions and layoffs can be attributed to targeting vacant positions for abolishment. So the actual reduction in the number of employees is 72 percent lower than his claims. Just another Jindal lie.ELIMINATED STATE POSITIONS BY YEAR
  • Louisiana’s economy is stronger than ever. (Wait. What? The last time we looked, the median household income in Louisiana was eighth lowest in the nation and our poverty rate the third highest with 10.7 percent of all households reporting an income of less than $10,000 per year.
  • Louisiana has received eight credit rating upgrades. (Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor are threatening to degrade the state’s credit rating. Sarah Palin’s lipstick on a pig comment comes to mind here. It would be interesting to see how you square your pontifications with the facts here.)
  • Louisiana’s economy has grown nearly twice as fast as the national economy. (Quite simply, a lie. All surveys show the state’s economic growth rate to be slower than the nation as a whole and the state is generally ranked 34th. In fact the nation’s GDP growth in 2013 was 1.8 percent, compared to Louisiana’s 1.3 percent. Even Mississippi’s was higher.)
  • We have outlined ways to minimize budget reductions to vital services such as higher education and health care. (Tuition at state colleges has increased 52 percent, eighth highest in the nation, since Gov. Bobby took office and his refusal to accept Medicaid expansion has deprived health care to 270,000 Louisiana residents and forced the closure of one of Baton Rouge’s busiest emergency rooms.) http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4135
  • “I do not measure Louisiana’s success by the prosperity of our government. I measure it by the prosperity of our people.” (That being the case, you are a colossal flop as a leader, politician, governor, and as a human being because it is your policies that have mired this state in the mud of mediocrity. You have deliberately set this state on a disastrous course—a course which you, for whatever reasons, continue to defend—of destruction. You have destroyed higher education, you have destroyed health care, you have destroyed the state’s infrastructure, you have destroyed the economy, you have destroyed a $500 million reserve fund set aside to guarantee uninterrupted medical care for state employees, retirees and their dependents, you have obliterated a $1 billion surplus when you took office seven years ago, somehow turning it into a $1.6 billion deficit. And worse than all that, you have turned your back on your people and the job they elected you to do so that you might continue on your fool’s errand of chasing an impossible dream of become president while the metaphorical crops rot in the fields back home.)

As a means of returning to reality, Gov. Bobby might wish to take a look at the USA Today poll that accompanied his latest work of fiction. At last check by LouisianaVoice, the poll showed that 13 percent of readers strongly agreed with Gov. Bobby while 3 percent simply agreed. Two percent had no clue while 9 percent disagreed and 73 percent strongly disagreed. Bottom line: 16 percent were in accord on some level with what he wrote while a whopping 82 percent weren’t buying.

Gov. Bobby, it should be pointed out, has opposed equal pay for women, rejected grants that would have gone to early childhood development and to expand broadband internet services in rural areas of the state, rejected a federal grant to help develop a high-speed rail line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and robbed funds from state agencies in order to patch over budget holes—things he never mentions in those stand up comedy acts at CPAC or in his op-ed pieces.

Even USA Today, apparently feeling some remorse for giving Gov. Bobby a stage on which to spew his rhetoric, was compelled to run its own piece in which it pointed out that not all is well in the land of gumbo and Mardi Gras. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/08/tax-cuts-state-louisiana-gov-jindal-kansas-gov-brownback-editorials-debates/24616613/

“Louisiana’s jobless rate has gone from much better than the national rate in 2008 to much worse,” the paper said, adding that Gov. Bobby “cherry-picks the years” on the economic growth rates and “doesn’t mention that since 2010, the state has lagged behind the national recovery.”

Pointing out that both Louisiana and Kansas have implemented huge tax cuts, USA Today says, “The results have been dismal. Growth has been sluggish in both states, and the plunge in revenue has devastated both states’ budgets.”

Recently, the Baton Rouge Advocate reported that Gov. Bobby spent 45 percent of 2014 outside the state as he chased the Republican president nomination. Jim Beam, writing in the Lake Charles American Press, said that in addition to becoming a national and international political critic, Gov. Bobby “continued to tell the rest of the world how great things were going back home. His listeners seldom bothered to check the facts.” http://www.americanpress.com/Beam-column-3-8-15

Beam, who has been around the state’s political scene for decades, noted that under Gov. Bobby, tax credits, exemptions and breaks given to business and industry which were projected to produce increased state revenue have not done so despite a cost of almost $7 billion per year.

After enduring seven years of non-stop sliding into economic and political oblivion under this administration, we have some unsolicited advice for Gov. Bobby:

Your term of office will end in approximately 10 months. Back the U-Haul up to the governor’s mansion, pile your belongings in it and hit I-10 and keep going. Don’t stop until you have settled in Iowa, New Hampshire, at some think tank in Washington, or on the Faux News set. Anywhere but Louisiana. Take Timmy Teepell, LABI apologist Steve Waguespack (who apparently does not believe in the First Amendment and who believes a college professor has no right to an opinion or the right to write a political column on his own time), and Kristy Nichols with you.

And please, whatever you do….don’t come back.

….And there’s really no need to wait until next January since you’ve already quit.

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