The regular meeting of the Livingston Parish All-American Redneck Male Chauvinist Spittin’, Belchin’, and Cussin’ Society and Literary Club (LPAARMCSBCSLC) was over and physically exhausted members exited the back room of John Wayne Culpepper’s Lip-Smackin’ Bar-B-Que House and Used Lightbulb Emporium after a mind-numbing near-record session of 11 minutes and headed home.
As they filtered out the front door, LPAARMCSBCSLC President Harley Purvis and I retired to his reserved booth in the back in the corner in the dark to discuss the day’s latest news.
Harley likes to keep track of the legislature and to make pointed observations about some of its actions and today was no exception.
“I see the governor signed HOUSE BILL 231 by Rep. Major Thibaut,” he said.
Thibaut, a New Roads Democrat, authored the bill which allows the immediate family member of a mayor or any other member of the governing authority of a municipality with a population of five thousand or less or a legal entity in which the family member has an interest to enter into a transaction with the municipality subject, of course, to “certain conditions.”
“One of those ‘conditions,’” Harley said, his disgust readily apparent, “is that permission be obtained from the State Board of Ethics.
“After what that idiot Bobby Jindal did to the Ethics Board and state ethics laws back in 2008, a governmental entity could probably bring back public floggings in the town square if they go about it the right way,” he said.
He looked away briefly before turning back to me. “I thought we had made progress when we started prohibiting elected officials’ family members from doing business with the agency they represent. Now we’re right back where we were 70 years ago.”
“And there’s HOUSE BILL 162 by Rep. Rob Shadoin.”
Shadoin is a Republican from my home town of Ruston. “What about it?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing. It just prohibits the filing of a false lien against state officers and state employees. Why ain’t that already against the law? But what I’d really like to know is what precipitated Shadoin’s filing of this bill in the first place that brought the need for such a law to his attention? I know almost every year there’s a bill filed against local speed traps and it’s only because some legislator got hisself a ticket. I betcha there’s a story behind Shadoin’s bill that we don’t know about.”
Just as suddenly, Harley turned his attention to national events.
“Mitch McConnell really is the face of the Repugnantcans. I mean, look at his health care bill.
“It’s one thing that he is so desperate to do away with Obamacare that he’s willing to throw anything up against the wall to see if it’ll stick. I’m not happy with Obamacare because it needs to be tweaked. But damn it, if it needs tweaking, tweak it, don’t just eradicate it. You don’t roll your car over a cliff because the air conditioning goes out; you repair the AC and move on. But the mentality of the Repugnantcans is ‘We gotta do away with Obamacare, even if we do rip health care away from 23 million people. We have to abolish Obamacare even if we do reduce Medicaid benefits. We must erase all vestiges of Obamacare even if premiums do go up, and it’s essential to repeal Obamacare especially even if it means nice tax breaks to the rich.’
“It’s pretty obvious that the mindset of McConnell and his Repugnantcan co-conspirators is not to do what’s best for the country, but to do whatever they can to undermine America’s middle class and low-income citizens to the benefit of the great 1 percent. And it’s pretty disgusting to think that’s who is representing the citizens of this country.”
Harley had a lot on his mind today, so he continued:
“And it’s a shame about the shooting of Rep. Scalise. I don’t agree to his politics but I sure don’t agree with some nutcase being able to obtain guns—especially high-powered semi-automatic weapons—and trying to make some kind of insane political statement.
“But what really burns my butt is attempts by Repugnantcans to tag Bernie Sanders with this just because the crazy guy was a Bernie supporter. Hell, I was a Bernie supporter but I would never even think of owning an automatic weapon, much less using against anyone.
“What’s worse, though, is you got some Repugnantcans like Rep. Chris Collins, and the ultra-conservative MEDIA trying to blame Democrats’ political RHETORIC for the shooting. That’s just about the stupidest thing I ever heard. There’re others, like Rep. RODNEY DAVIS and even DONALD TRUMP JR who somehow saw the attack as the fault of Democrats.
“And wasn’t The Donald himself, when he was running for president, who encouraged his supporters to physically ATTACK protesters? I seem to remember he even offered to pay their legal bills if they did so. They all apparently forgot that Rep. Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords was also shot by a deranged maniac in 2011 and she’s a Democrat. But weren’t the Repugnantcans strangely quiet about that shooting?
“If you want to blame rhetoric, then maybe the Repugnantcans should be asking if their support of open carry laws and their support of semi-automatic weapons—bought and paid for by the NRA—might be a contributing factor to insane acts like this one. Perhaps the Repugnantcans should be questioning whether their fanatical support of weapons designed to kill people—and that’s the only purpose for those weapons—might be the problem.”
He drained his mug of stale coffee before going on. “Every time there’s a mass shooting with these killing machines, it’s awfully coincidental how the NRA rushes to the microphones to defend their sale and the Repugnantcans in Congress kill any efforts at banning them.
“And after each shooting, those same Repugnantcans run and hide behind the NRA which in turn, keeps their campaign contribution pipeline flowing wide open.”
Louisiana Voice 
You and Purvis need to coffee In my tractorshed. Great stuff and says what I like to read! The Gold Standard of Ethics was a great pun. It was all about gold and not ethics. Still is, goofy to penalize local community activists & insult their intelligence and integrity, so I agree with Mr. Thibaut. I would advise all small towns/villages to ignore the law and let the Ethics Bd clog up so they couldn’t go after the real violators who did not cough up enough campaign contributions.
love always ron thompson
Gee, I don’t know why Harley is complaining about Mitch’s health plan in the Senate, It is doing exactly what Harley wants, tweaking Obamacare. Obamacare is the reason for the poor and middle class getting insurance, however, we can’t use it. Cost too damn much for out of pocket co-pay and deductible. What good is insurance if you can’t use it!
No, you are incorrect. They are not “tweaking” Obamacare, they’re abolishing it. Now they’re saying repeal Obamacare and we’ll get around to passing something else in a couple of years. Meanwhile, people will die. Yes, it does cost too much and that certainly is one of the problems that must be addressed. But strangely enough, the most significant feature of McConnell’s version is the incredibly huge tax break it gives to the rich.
So, if you are not wealthy, it’s rather difficult to understand why you like the newest proposal.
Here is a sentence from a brief letter I sent Senators Kennedy and Cassidy last week:
“The solution to our healthcare problem is to implement a single payer system based on the Medicare model supplemented by private insurance and/or Medicaid.”
This is also the simplest solution, but we will never do it. In the meantime, we will continue to wallow in the mire of a complicated and grossly unfair and expensive system of medical care. I know all the arguments against “socialized medicine” and have heard them all my life, but most civilized countries consider healthcare important enough to actually cover everybody. I also know all the arguments about all our whoop-de-do technology and how many lives it saves. What you don’t hear much about are the lives lost because the people couldn’t afford access to them. I could go on and on and on and on, but I think you get my point. You may not agree, but you get it.
P. S. At least I got a cut-and-past response from Cassidy. From Kennedy, nada, which is equal to the extent to which he has represented me since his election to the senate. And, for some unknown reason, he apparently still aspires to be guv’na of our beloved state – I used to think he was smart.
I have been an avid reader of your blog for years AND I agree with most, if not all, of this column. However, please correct your friend(s) and readers on this point – in none of the recent or past shootings in the United were “automatic” weapons used. Automatic weapons are banned for personal use. Likewise, “Assault weapons” have not been used. Assault weapons have to be (1) magazine or belt fed and (2) capable of semi-automatic AND automatic fire (some states have used other attributes which demonstrate superficial understanding of firearms). Whether or not firearm availability and ownership should continue to be allowed is an entirely different issue.
BTW I have offered and taken several persons who do not support firearm ownership to a range and had them fire revolvers, semi-auto pistols and an AR-15. Almost all were surprised to find that you have to pull the trigger for each and every shot and that holding the trigger down does nothing after the first shot. They were also amazed how hard it is to target a man-sized target at even 10 yards.
Most still think (and I agree) that better regulations need to be in place regarding gun ownership and availability, training and safety and removing guns from those persons where it is appropriate. However they now have a better understanding of the mechanics behind an attack with firearms.
Again, firearms ownership is a personal matter and my comments are not meant to force my views on anyone else..
Semi-automatic weapons were used in 13 of 48 mass shootings since 2004, the year the ban on assault weapons was rescinded. Six of these were in 2015 and 2016. The AR-15 is considered the weapon of choice by most shooters. https://www.bustle.com/articles/167502-how-many-mass-shootings-were-ar-15-rifles-involved-in-its-not-the-only-semiautomatic-rifle-on
I just read an excellent, rational, factual letter in The ADVOCATE that should be required reading for everybody. For some reason it is not on their website nor is the other letter in today’s paper. It is from Michael Hale and captioned (in the paper version) “Some facts about Canadian health care. Here are a few excerpts:
On waiting for appointments something for which universal health care is often criticized:
“I recently went to the doctor. At the end of the examination, he asked me to come back in 60 days. At the checkout desk, I asked for my next appointment date and was told that the earliest available was six months out.”
[A friend of mine is in kidney failure. It took him 3 months to get an appointment with the nephrologist to whom his GP referred him and then only because there was a cancellation.]
On having health insurance – something a lot of U. S. citizens don’t have:
“Most importantly, no Canadian has died for lack of health insurance in decades…A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund found that the U. S. had the highest rate of death from lack of medical insurance than any other of the top 19 industrialized nations in the survey. Canada was sixth.”
On how Canadians feel about their health care system:
In 2004, the Canadian Broadcast System did a survey to find out who its viewers considered “The greatest Canadian” of all times. “They chose a guy named Tommy Douglas – the Father of Canadian Medicare.”
[The letter that follows Hale’s is from a New Orleans physician and attacks the Republican health care bill on excellent grounds and reminds Senator Cassidy of the Hippocratic Oath . It advocates building on the Affordable Care Act rather than replacing it with the inaptly-named, “Better Care Reconciliation Act” and points out the value of the current Medicaid system. I still believe universal care is the only true answer but Dr. Rigamer makes excellent points.]
Health care is not complicated. Funding is extremely difficult under our current greedy system, and the Republicans around here still believe if you give the ______democrats health care they won’t work and just have more babies so they can get more welfare. I agree with Mr. Winham and love his educating references. love always ron thompson
Thanks, Ron. The ADVOCATE now has the letter online. It really is a good one:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_54dcfe4a-5cef-11e7-be6f-bbb49bff3426.html