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Archive for November, 2015

Major development: Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne has change of heart; will endorse John Bel Edwards at LSU on Thursday

Posted in Elections, Governor's Office, Legislature, Vitter on November 4, 2015| 22 Comments »

In the wake of his disappointing finish in the October 24 primary election, largely attributable to some of the most vicious attack ads by second place finisher David Vitter, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne announced that he would not endorse either of the candidates in the Nov. 21 general election.

That appears to have changed now.

Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards, who led the field in the primary election with 40 percent of the votes cast, has scheduled a special press conference for 9 a.m. Thursday (Nov. 5) at Free Speech Alley in front of the student union on the LSU campus.

Both the Baton Rouge Advocate and nola.com have posted online stories saying that Dardenne will be announcing his endorsement of Edwards at the press conference.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/11/jay_dardenne_edwards_endorseme.html

http://theadvocate.com/home/13888680-125/sources-jay-dardenne-ready-to

That would be a major coup for Edwards. In addition to the 444,517 votes cast for Edwards, Dardenne, who finished fourth in the primary election, received 166,656 votes. Between the two, that accounts for 611,173, or 54.8 percent of the 1,114,336 votes cast.

Vitter has captured the consolation prize of former Gov. Mike Foster’s endorsement.

But perhaps voters should remember that Foster is the one guilty of foisting Bobby Jindal upon the unwitting Louisiana populace. Based on that unenviable legacy, his endorsement could prove counterproductive to Vitter.

Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle placed third with 214,982 votes. So far, he has not endorsed either candidate for the runoff election but he was also the subject of the same attack ads as Dardenne.

Vitter is not making any new friends with his new wave of misleading attack ads, this time aimed at Edwards. Filled with distortions and outright lies about Edwards’s voting record as a legislator, the early ads have already backfired.

After a spate of ads claiming that Edwards planned to release 5,500 hardened criminals from prison, the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association promptly endorsed Edwards. (Edwards actually called for prison reform that would offer rehabilitation to non-violent offenders, thus reducing the prison population for a state that has the highest incarceration rate in the world—higher even than Russia, Iraq, Iran, and every other country on earth.)

Dardenne, for his part, said his position on offering his endorsement “evolved over time,” according to nola.com. He and Edwards have kept the lines of communication open since the primary election and Edwards has repeatedly, even during the campaign leading up to the Oct. 24 primary, referred to Dardenne and Angelle as honorable men and “dedicated public servants.”

As for Vitter, when the state’s senior U.S. Senator said during one of his rare debate appearances that Edwards had voted for President Obama, Edwards replied, “Yes, I did vote for Obama but I never voted for David Vitter.”

Dardenne’s endorsement is significant in two ways:

It is extremely rare for a Republican to endorse a Democrat, or vice-versa, and

It sends an unmistakable message to his supporters that his brand of dirty politics is beyond the pale, even for Louisiana.

And while the Republicans in the Louisiana House have voted to endorse Vitter—no surprise there considering the gutless servitude to Jindal during his eight pitiful years in office—the Senate Republicans in so many words told its House counterparts to take a walk.

Vitter must be feeling the early symptoms of panic.

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Guest columnist shows 90% of Vitter Super PAC costs were for trashing GOP opponents, lining staff members’ pockets

Posted in Uncategorized on November 4, 2015| 10 Comments »

(Special to LouisianaVoice)

By MARK JOYCE

The Fund for Louisiana’s Future (FLF) is funded by David Vitter and his supporters. FLF shares staff and resources with the Vitter election committee. FLF has spent the bulk of its funds trash talking other Republicans.

  • FLF is a political organization registered with the Federal Elections Commission as a federal independent expenditure-only committee, commonly referred to as a “Super PAC,” and also registered with the Louisiana Supervisory Committee on Campaign Finance Disclosure as a state “political committee.” [1]
  • FLF is supporting David Vitter by bashing his opponents. The PAC produces no ads telling voters why they should vote for Vitter, only ads trying to damage the reputations of anyone running against him. (Note: The single exception is $3,000 for media buys for the Insurance Commissioner. This is the single instance of FLF saying something nice about a Republican.)
  • The single biggest contributor to FLF was “David Vitter for US Senate” to the tune of $950,000.
  • Charles Spies, the lawyer, who founded FLF and is now the Treasurer of FLF, is employed by Clark Hill in Washington, DC. Clark Hill has received more than 10% of all FLF expenditures to date or over $400,000. In 2014, Mr. Spies swore that:
  • FLF does not and will not make contributions to, or coordinated expenditures on behalf of, candidates or political party committees that all decisions concerning expenditures of FLF’s funds are made independent of any candidate, campaign, party committee, or their agents.[2]
  • Joel DiGrado, executive director of FLF is also Vitter’s communications director and the owner of Briefcase Strategies LLC. Briefcase Strategies LLC has received $96,357.03 from FLF so far in 2015.
  • Courtney Guastella (Callihan), ex-Finance Director for “David Vitter for US Senate,” is the current Finance Director for Vitter and the go-to person for various fundraisers for Vitter. Her home address is 6048 Marshall Foch Street, New Orleans. That just happens to also be the mailing address and registration address for FLF. Courtney has received $205,000 from FLF in the last few years for “fundraising consulting” as well as $145,000 from Vitter’s campaign. That comes to a grand total of $350,000 from the two organizations over the same period. Courtney is FLF’s highest paid individual consultant. (Remember that the FLF PAC and Vitter (campaign) teams are supposed to be independent and not collaborate. Yet the highest paid FLF staff person is also a six-figure consultant to Vitter’s campaign).
  • In April 2015, Nicole Licardi joined FLF and is now FLF’s Finance Director. Licardi has a long history with and is still a fundraiser for Bill Cassidy. Since April 2015, FLF has paid her $78,111.62 or about $12,000 per month.
  • As of November 1, FLF (Vitter’s hatchet boys and girls) spent one-third of all contributions to date or $2,342,343.71 on media across the state to belittle and trash talk Republican candidates Dardenne and Angelle (who, many agree, were the much better candidates). Vitter is now asking for their support. Breaking that down a little further and assuming their spending patterns continue:

FLF EXPENDITURE BREAKDOWN

More than half the $6 million contributed to FLF went for:

  • Lining staff pockets (Spies, DiGrado, Guastella, and Licardi – $1 million.
  • Trash talking other Republicans (Dardenne and Angelle) – $2.3 million.

FLF spent seven times the money slamming Republican candidates as opposed to slamming Democrats and others.

Does it make sense for good Republicans to contribute to an organization that spends the majority of their funds slamming other Republicans?

Shameful.

The bottom line is that obviously, sleazy money is corrupting the system and not giving Louisianans the choices they deserve. What ex-supporter of Dardenne or Angelle would vote for Vitter now?

This is no way to run our state.

Louisiana taxpayers were forced to contribute $70,000 in legal fees to FLF to help Vitter raise the cap on amounts of money from out-of-state interests. That amount was the legal fees awarded FLF after it won its lawsuit against the Louisiana Board of Ethics. FLF uses that money to denigrate good Louisiana public servants. Republicans contributing money to be passed to people to beat up on Republicans. In what world does this make sense?

This is the first in a series of three articles as we pull back each layer and trace each link. To demonstrate openness, next week we have decided to release our complete databases – the entire contents of all our databases – in machine-readable form, all the results, all the tools & techniques for, a user’s guide, a guide to contributors and expenditures entities and all our results free of charge to anyone who wants them. One week from today. Complete unfettered access and they can download the entire data set. No charge. No registration.

Anyone can do his or her own research.

This information was gleaned from publicly available federal records, Louisiana Ethics Board reports and other publicly available sources. Corrections and comments are welcome. The authors believe in a fair and open debate based on the facts. What could be easier?

 

[1] The Fund For Louisiana’s Future v. Louisiana Board of Ethics et al, No. 2:2014cv00368 – Document 38 (E.D. La. 2014)

[2] Ibid

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Hayride credibility shot; rabidly conservative political blog on Vitter payroll at $1K per month: ‘a lot like prostitution’

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, Media, Politicians on November 3, 2015| 12 Comments »

“That seems a lot like prostitution, don’t you think?”

When LouisianaVoice held its recent fundraiser, one elected official donated $250 to us from his election campaign.

Because we have never laid claim to being objective but we do pride ourselves in our independence, we thanked the donor for his generosity…and returned the money. We explained that while his support was appreciated right down to our very bone marrow, we felt it would not be good for him—or us—should someone delve into his campaign expense report and discover that he was sending us money.

In politics, as with anything with the word ethics attached to it, perception is everything and the last thing we wanted to give the appearance that we were beholden to any candidate. We may—and do—support political candidates, but we reserve the right to be critical of any policy with which we might disagree. Accepting payment from an elected or appointed official strips us of our ability to view that official objectively and to report what needs to be reported.

Republican State Senators Dale Erdey of Livingston and Danny Martiny of Metairie are examples of elected officials with whom we generally agree but with whom we have occasionally had our differences. Likewise any number of other members of the Louisiana House and Senate.

While Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle was roundly criticized for leaving his position as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources in the wake of the Assumption Parish sinkhole at Bayou Corne, we vigorously defended him and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne from the merciless attacks of Diaper Boy Dave Vitter in the weeks leading up to the recent gubernatorial primary election.

Which brings us to the subject of Vitter who finished a distant second to State Rep. John Bel Edwards and is now launching one of the most vicious smear campaigns in recent history in a desperate effort to woo Dardenne and Angelle supporters in order to overcome the huge Edwards lead. Perhaps the sting of those unwarranted attacks have caused Dardenne and Angelle to thus far refuse to endorse a candidate in the runoff.

Usually, the losers to a candidate of the same party would support that candidate in a race against someone from the opposing party. Not this time and that sends a not so subtle message to their supporters: if the Republican leader is not worthy of the support of two Republicans who failed to advance, perhaps their supporters might consider looking elsewhere.

That is the dilemma facing a desperate Vitter who is on the verge—like Edwin Edwards in 1987—of losing the first political race of his life. Edwards avoided that fate by withdrawing from the runoff, giving the governorship to Buddy Roemer but did eventually lose his first race last year when he sought the Sixth Congressional District won by Garrett Graves.

We make no secret of our distaste for Vitter but we have taken our position free of charge.

Not so with Scott McKay.

McKay is the publisher of The Hayride political blog which has for some time now received income (we presume) from a series of really cheesy, thinly-disguised “news stories” (advertisements, really) for such things as a biblical cure for cancer, sure-fire riches via questionable schemes, scary stories about imminent collapse of world financial markets and ways to protect your wealth, etc.

And while we have refrained from openly criticizing his blog because we feel he has the same right as we to express his views openly and without reprisals, fellow blogger Lamar White today (Tuesday, November 3) revealed that Vitters’ campaign expense reports reveal that he has paid Hayride Media, LLC of Baton Rouge $1,000 per month since last February.

That’s $8,000 total to someone who should insist that his blog remain above reproach in the interest of any shred of credibility he may have.

We have long suspected that Bobby Jindal’s organization was somehow funneling money to The Hayride, but could never find proof that was the case. Vitter, however, is a different story. Thanks to Lamar White and his blog, CenLamar, we now have that proof of the latter’s support. http://cenlamar.com/2015/11/03/david-vitter-pays-controversial-blogger-1kmonth-to-attack-john-bel-edwards-as-a-treasonous-terrorist-in-al-Qaeda/

To further demonstrate just how low this campaign has sunk, thanks to Vitter and his now-revealed media mouthpiece, here is a tweet from McKay, also provided by CenLamar:

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Vitter is now like Jimmy Swaggart, according to McKay—an undesirable but a clear preference to Edwards, who McKay compared to American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki.

Folks, this is insidious—and despicable. McKay has single-handedly plunged this campaign into the depths of his own personal sewer.

If this is the type person you prefer to listen to, then we can only express our sympathies that you are this shallow, this narrow-minded, this bigoted. McKay’s tweet borders on the psychopathic, the anti-social fringe element of society.

The irony is that they believe they are advancing Christian principles when in reality what Vitter—and McKay—are saying is about as far removed from the teachings of Christ as anything any member of….oh, say Isis, could utter. (Yes, that is extreme and a bit overblown, but we were hard pressed to find a comparable hate group with which to compare them other than the old John Birch Society or the KKK.)

On the hate meter, McKay’s tweet ranks right up there with General Phil Sheridan who, in January of 1869, when Comanche Indian Chief Toch-a-Way (Turtle Dove) said, “Me Toch-a-Way, me good Indian, replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”

Where is the humility, the love for others, the help for those less fortunate, the forgiveness? It’s not there. Instead, we have a paid shill for Vitter comparing an honor graduate of West Point and an 82nd Airborne Ranger leader to a terrorist.

Edwards, in Denham Springs Tuesday morning for a campaign appearance, was asked by LouisianaVoice about White’s revelation that McKay was on Vitter’s payroll, responded, “That seems a lot like prostitution, don’t you think?”

We couldn’t agree more.

And we’re not being paid to say it.

 

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