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Archive for November, 2017

LSP report says Edmonson ordered probe, later deleted texts revealing his knowledge of four troopers’ San Diego side trip

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Public Records, State Police on November 30, 2017| 13 Comments »

The long-anticipated Louisiana State Police (LSP) REPORT on the infamous trip to San Diego by way of the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and Hoover Dam in a state vehicle by four state troopers is finally out and it does not bode well for the four or former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson.

The report says “there is sufficient evidence to prove a procedural or criminal violation” against Lt. Rodney Hyatt, Maj. Derrell Williams and troopers Thurman Miller and Alexandr Nezgodinsky. Hyatt and Williams have since been demoted to sergeant and lieutenant, respectively. 

(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

But the most damning revelation of the 332-page report is contained in a single paragraph in which Hyatt described to State Police investigators how Edmonson last March 14 took his (Hyatt’s) state-issue cellphone and deleted all text messages older than 30 days.

That paragraph says:

“…Investigators requested Lt. Hyatt provide his personal cellphone records from October 10-20, 2016, and he complied…Lt. Hyatt informed investigators that on March 14, 2017, he attended a Louisiana Trooper Foundation meeting. Colonel Edmonson was present and informed him he (Edmonson) was retiring. According to Lt. Hyatt, Colonel Edmonson mentioned to him that text messages would stay on his cellphone forever and said he (Edmonson) would show him (Hyatt). Lt. Hyatt said Colonel Edmonson took his cellphone and went to the settings feature and manipulated the settings to delete any texts/messages older than 30 days. Lt. Hyatt explained the settings feature was set to keep texts/messages forever before Colonel Edmonson changed it. Therefore, he had no texts/messages on his cellphone from 2016.” 

The Internal Affairs investigation was ordered by Edmonson himself and it was initiated on Feb. 22—nearly a month before Edmonson deleted the text messages from Hyatt’s state cellphone. If true, that would mean that Edmonson knowingly destroyed evidence in an ongoing investigation.

That would be particularly egregious in light of the contents of two other documents contained in the report obtained Thursday by LouisianaVoice.

The first, dated Feb. 24, is one of four identical letters sent to Hyatt, Williams, Miller and Nezgodinsky which cites LSP regulation 209(7)(i): “Internal Affairs Investigators or Designated Administrative Investigators shall receive the full cooperation of any employee of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Public Safety Services, during the course of an administrative investigation.” (Emphasis theirs.)

The other is also a duplicate given each of the four under Edmonson’s name and title which says:

“As a direct representative of the appointing authority, I hereby order you to answer all questions truthfully, completely and unevasively.

“You should understand that by refusing to obey this order, even at the advice of counsel, you can be disciplined for insubordination. The punishment for insubordination can be up to and including termination of employment.” (Emphasis mine.)

What makes those to passages especially significant, besides Edmonson’s alleged destruction of evidence during an ongoing investigation, is his own refusal to cooperate with investigators two months into the investigation and about a month after his retirement.

He sat for one informal interview during which he acknowledged speaking with Hyatt before their departure and that their discussion included the so-called “northern” route that would take the four on their side trip. But he said he never approved the group to claim time for expenses related to their travel and lodging.

“On April 18, 2017,” the report says, “investigators asked Colonel Edmonson by telephone if he would be willing to provide a formal statement pertaining to the ongoing investigation. Colonel Edmonson state he didn’t have any additional information to add to what he had informally mentioned prior to his retirement.

“On May 11, 2017, investigators emailed Colonel Edmonson requesting a formal interview.”

The email sent to Edmonson on May 11 read:

“As previously discussed, the Department would like to interview you pertaining to the current investigation being conducted into the 2016 IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police) Conference. Please advise as soon as possible of your availability/willingness as we are trying to conclude the investigation.”

“Later that day,” the report says, “Colonel Edmonson contacted investigators and essentially declined a formal interview by stating he didn’t have any additional information to add to what he had informally mentioned prior to his retirement.

So much for Edmonson’s compliance with the same standards to which he held subordinates.

“Investigators obtained Colonel Edmonson’s state-issued cellphone records and they did not reveal any text messages sent to any of the group from October 10-20, 2016. It should be noted Colonel Edmonson had an iPhone which utilized ‘iMessage,’ an Apple messaging feature, and the messages would not show up on the cellphone carrier’s messaging log.” (Emphasis theirs.)

The report meticulously recreated the time sequence for the travel to San Diego, including receipts for times when the four stopped for meals, gasoline, hotels and sightseeing. It even tracked their activity during the conference and questioned expense vouchers and time sheets, most of which has been covered in previous stories by LouisianaVoice and the Baton Rouge ADVOCATE.

The report concluded, “It’s obvious Colonel Edmonson was aware they visited those locations based on photos sent to him by Mrs. Hyatt, telephone calls between he (sic) and Lt. Hyatt, and statements obtained during the investigations.”

The Legislative Auditor’s office is also winding up an investigative audit of LSP as a result of the furor created by the trip.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore has initiated an INVESTIGATION into the suspension of three State Troopers for being paid overtime for work they may not have performed following a New Orleans TV station’s early November exposure of abuses under the Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE) program.

It’s been more than a year since that San Diego trip but Moore has been strangely quiet about the payments collected by the four troopers.

It will be interesting to see if he will open an investigation into Edmonson’s deleting text messages from a state cellphone that were relevant to an ongoing investigation.

 

 

 

 

 

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To advice that LouisianaVoice lay off Trump: when hell freezes over or Troy beats Bama, whichever comes first

Posted in Corruption, Economy, Ethics, Exemptions, Fraud, Politicians, Senate, Taxes on November 30, 2017| 20 Comments »

One of LouisianaVoice’s regular readers commented on Wednesday’s post that “half of Congress is occupied by communists” and “half of the supposed ‘good guys’ are swamp creatures that lie to get elected (only half?) and don’t really want the change that got them elected.”

And then he wrote, “Lay off of Trump. You sat by for 8 years as Obama raped and pillaged our country. He turned the IRS and intelligence agencies against us. He made deals with Iran as they chanted ‘death to America.’ Trump isn’t anyone’s savior but at least I don’t have to wonder if he truly hates this country like I did with Osama…I mean Obama.”

Oh dear, where to start? First of all, he every right to his opinion and the right to express it. But saying that “half of Congress is occupied by communists” is such an all-encompassing, paint-em-all-with-the-same-broad-brush kind of generalization that is all too common to people who go off on tangents and post unsubstantiated comments such as that. How can anyone say half of the 535 members of the House and Senate are communists when at the very most, he may have met a half-dozen of them for five minutes? That is such an inane comment that it really doesn’t even warrant dignifying with a rebuttal, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Obama “pillaged our country”? Just how, exactly, did he “pillage” the country? As I recall, Enron self-destructed in 2003, the housing bubble burst, Lehman Brothers went belly up and Bank of America acquired the cratering Merrill Lynch in 2008 near the end of George W. Bush’s term. Moreover, the entire affair was precipitated by the deregulation of financial institutions during the Reagan years.

True enough, Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, refused to prosecute the Wall Street bankers who brought on the collapse. That much I’ll give you and I still harbor resentment toward both Obama and Holder over that colossal malfeasance in failing to go after those thieves. You just know if some street thug had robbed a bank of a hundred bucks, he’d see hard time. Yet, those bankers stole billions—and walked away. Some were even paid bonuses of tens of millions of dollars for their trouble.

(You’d think we would’ve learned our lesson with the savings and loan debacle back in the final two decades of the Twentieth Century. William Black even wrote a prophetic book called The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Who knew then that the S&L collapse would reoccur on a much larger scale with the investment banks?)

And that “deal” with Iran is apparently the $150 billion Trump said Obama “gave” Iran. Pulitzer Prize-winning POLITIFACT says Trump got the name of the country right but that was about the extent of his accuracy. The $150 billion, you see, was Iran’s to begin with but had been frozen under several economic sanctions levied against the country. The money—their money—was released following verification by nuclear inspectors that Iran was complying with an agreement to curb its nuclear program. I suppose, though, if our reader got his information from BREITBART, he would have a somewhat different take on the whole affair.

And I just flat-out refuse to hold Obama responsible for the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina as some of Trump’s supporters continue to do. After all, the man wasn’t even president then and had only been in the Senate eight months. I actually heard one woman in Denham Springs mutter in disgust, “Thanks, President Obama” when she found the post office closed on Columbus Day—a federal holiday since 1968.

Finally, in response to the request to “lay off of trump”: not a chance in hell.

He has the chutzpa to question Obama’s loyalty to this country while choosing (typically of the TrumpCult) to overlook the fact that Trump has feuded with CNN, MSNBC, Time magazine, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Hispanics, and The New York Times—but strangely never with the Nazis, David Duke, Jason Kessler, or Vladimir Putin. All of which begs the question of where Trump’s loyalties lie.

Nope, I’m not going “lay off of Trump,” or the rest of the Repugnantcan gang of thugs who want to award generous—and permanent—tax breaks to the wealthy while doling out meager temporary breaks to the middle class and the poor.

  • Especially when Trump and his EPA Administrator have proposed the repeal of the Clean Power Plan which will give the go-ahead for polluting companies to pollute even more. That EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, you may remember, filed numerous suits against the EPA while Oklahoma attorney general which, I suppose, somehow makes him the perfect candidate to run the agency. Maybe I should sue Microsoft in hopes of being named the new CEO.
  • Especially when Trump appoints his budget director Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by (ahem) the Obama administration to protect Americans from predatory lenders and faulty mortgages—like the very ones that nearly brought down the world economy in 2008. Mulvaney, by the way, once called the bureau “a joke…in a sick, sad way.”
  • Especially when I read a story from 24/7 Wall Street just this week about the top 50 corporations that park their assets offshore. Of those 50 companies, which have a combined $1.7 trillion stashed in overseas accounts, 10 are healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, three are big oil, two are insurance giants, five are military contractors, five are computer companies and internet providers and 11 (count ‘em) are financial companies—many of the ones whose criminal activity (never prosecuted by Attorney General Holder) brought about the 2008 crash that necessitated the federal bailout.

Those 50 corporations, along with all the others, no doubt, have located enough loopholes to make their 35 per cent tax rate. Despite their bitching and moaning that the rate is too high, the 50 averaged just over 25 percent in effective tax rates.

  • AIG, one of the companies that gave us the 2008 recession, for example had an effective tax rate of minus 5 percent, meaning it not only paid no taxes, but actually got money. Likewise, General Motors had an effective rate of minus 32.9 percent.
  • Morgan Stanley, another of those Wall Street bankers who torpedoed the economy, had an effective tax rate of 17.2 percent, less than half the supposed rate of 35 percent. Bank of America, yet another of the rogue Wall Street bankers, had an effective tax rate of 17.9 percent.
  • The pharmaceutical company Allergan had an effective tax rate of zero.

What was your personal tax rate again?

Just take comfort in the knowledge that the biggest tax breaks under this bill go them that got—corporations and the filthy rich.

The wealthiest 1 percent of people worldwide have more wealth than the rest of the earth’s population combined.

Just eight individuals possess more wealth than 3.6 billion people—half the world’s population.

True, not all of those live in the U.S. But let that sink in and be proud for those who will realize the most generous tax breaks under this bill. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself by clicking HERE. (Be sure to scroll down to the illustration of the spheres of influence.)

Trump and the Republicans in Congress, having failed in every effort to repeal Obamacare, are now so desperate to accomplish something, anything, before standing for reelection next year (the full House and one-third of the Senate), that they are flailing away like a blindfolded man in a martial arts tournament in a near-hysterical effort to get this ill-advised tax bill passed.

Those who proudly call themselves advocates of good ol’ American capitalism will rail against the redistribution of wealth, spitting out the term as if it were a vulgarism of the vilest sort. But a dramatic redistribution of wealth has been taking place for the past several decades. And it has been—and continues to be—redistributed upward, not downward. That’s the dirty little secret they will never discuss because that kind of redistribution is perfectly okay.

And know, too, that there is only one reason to park money offshore: to dodge taxes.

How much do you have sheltered in the Cayman Islands? Or Aruba? Or Belize?

Didn’t think so. Yet, it is the white middle class and white working poor, the ones who make up the core of the 35 percent that comprises the TrumpCult, who are being screwed by this clown and the Republicans in Congress.

And the saddest part is they don’t even know it.

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Tax Reform Bill biggest political myth since John Neely Kennedy ‘reduced paperwork for small business by 150%’

Posted in Congress, Corruption, Ethics, Exemptions, Finances, Fraud, Higher Education, House, Senate, Politicians, Taxes on November 29, 2017| 25 Comments »

Corporations need tax breaks

so they can earn more money

to pour into campaigns and PACs

to lobby for bigger tax cuts

Spoiler alert: All you frothing fanatics who still think Donald Trump is the savior of the free world may want to stop reading at this point because the rest of what I’m about to say will not be very pleasant to those of you who to this point have refused to think for yourselves and this will only serve to stoke your anger.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t read it; you should. You should read the words of what any rational observer of the body politic might write about this blusterous buffoon we know as POTUS. To refuse to read or hear or to ignore the facts would cast you into that 35 percent core group of Trump supporters that I refer to as a cult. You continue to experience mind-altering donalgasms with each new tweet.

Okay, you’re already composing your response for this post’s comments section. You will say:

  • That I am a flaming liberal (I’m not. In fact, I only left the Republican Party after more than 30 years of an uninterrupted record of voting Republican because of the likes of Bobby Jindal and Donald Trump);
  • That my candidate Hillary Clinton lost the election (she was not my candidate; I really dislike her intensely, just not with the same intensity as that with which I loathe Donald Trump. And Hillary didn’t lose, the American people lost);
  • That I can’t get past losing (what I can’t get past is having a POTUS who is a laughingstock to the rest of the world, who would accept the word of Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence agencies, who thinks it is more important to have a child molester in the U.S. Senate than a Democrat, and who finds it impossible to distinguish documented facts from his sorry version of the truth).

Since becoming president, Trump has been caught telling no fewer than 500 lies that are easily substantiated as such. Yes, all politicians lie. Former Gov. Edwin Edwards once said as much. But this idiot has taken it to a new level, lying through his teeth even as he had to know his every utterance and tweet is fact-checked and more often than not, debunked before the echo of his words has faded. A few examples:

  • During the campaign, he promised to release his income tax reports. He lied.
  • He claimed the crowd for his inauguration was the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration.” He lied.
  • During his speech at CIA headquarters, he repeated his claim that he opposed the war with Iraq. But he told Howard Stern in 2002 that he supported the war. He lied.
  • Trump has repeatedly, without any evidence to back his claim, said he only lost the national popular vote because of widespread voter fraud. He lied.
  • Speaking to business leaders at the White House, Trump said, “I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment.” He has never received any environmental awards. He lied.
  • Trump claimed that immigration and Customs Enforcement and border agents “unanimously endorsed me for president.” He lied.
  • He said the national homicide rate was “horribly increasing.” In fact, it is down significantly (except perhaps in Baton Rouge). He lied.
  • He claimed two people were fatally shot in Chicago during President Obama’s last speech as president. Didn’t happen. He lied.
  • He claimed he had “one of the best memories of all time” but later could not remember a meeting with George Papadopoulos, who confessed to lying to the FBI about meeting with Soviet agents. Here is a photo of that meeting.

He Lied.

  • His “alternative facts” spokesperson Kellyanne Conway alluded to the “Bowling Green massacre” in defending Trump’s travel ban. There was no “Bowling Green massacre.” She lied for him.
  • Trump claimed The New York Times was “forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win.” Never happened. He lied.
  • Trump promised tax reform that would lower taxes for working Americans. The biggest cruelest LIE of them all.

And these are only a handful of the buckets of lies that have poured out of his mouth.

Just as cruel, and approaching a new level of stupid, is the position taken on the tax bill by Louisiana’s two senators, John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy. Cassidy’s support is baffling because he worked as a physician at Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge where he had to know the desperation of Louisiana’s poor, uninsured citizens.

Kennedy is more understandable. In addition to drinking week killer, he once ran a TV ad during his first campaign for state treasurer in which he said, “During my time as secretary of Revenue, I reduced paperwork for small businesses by 150 percent.”

How anything can be reduced more than 100 percent is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. The real irony, however, is that the claim came from a man who was asking us to put him in charge of the state’s financial investments. Talk about voodoo economics….

Kennedy has said he would vote against the tax bill if it contained the so-called “TRIGGER” provision, which would automatically abort the bill and revert to the present tax rates if the new bill did not perform as projected by the Republicans in Congress who keep promising they are from the government and that they are here to help us. And they’ll still respect us in the morning.

ILLUSTRATION OF PROJECTED EFFECTS OF TAX BILL

Those of you who have stayed with me to this point need to consider one other feature of the so-called “tax reform” package.

If you have children in college, who are headed for college in a couple of years, or if you have children who recently graduated from college, it might interest you to know that the interest rates on student LOANS will no longer be deductible under the new tax bill. Moreover, students on TOPS or who receive other tuition EXEMPTIONS will find that those exemptions will now count as income on which taxes will be due.

Of course, Trump and his congressional lap dogs—Cassidy, Kennedy, Garrett Graves and the rest of Louisiana’s Repugnantcan delegation included—will continue to lie, distort, twist and skew the facts to make you believe their tax REFORM is the best thing for you since Barry Goldwater and you will continue to drink the Kool Aid—because you want to believe them.

Never mind that you continue to vote against your own economic interests because the Repugnantcans continue to feed you the red meat of islamophobia, illegal immigrants, welfare cheats (who in fact take only a tiny fraction of what corporate America and Wall Street steal from taxpayers every day), Obamacare and gun rights. They do this in the knowledge that you will continue to elect a 70-year-old child predator as long as he waves a pistol in the air and displays the Ten Commandments.

You are being taken for fools, to be perfectly honest. The Republicans are holding a Bible in one hand, wrapping themselves in the flag and picking your pocket, all in one swift motion.

And you love them for it.

I don’t suppose any of you have ever wondered what became of the so-called Fiscal Hawks now that the Republicans have full control over everything in Washington. It’s kinda funny how you don’t hear anything about deficit reduction these days.

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Evidence that justice not only blind, but brainless as well

Posted in Uncategorized on November 23, 2017| 5 Comments »

The idealists among us like to say that justice is blind and illustrations generally show us Lady Justice with a blindfold as she holds the scales of justice.

But if the statues gracing the front of the Federal Courthouse in Lafayette are any indication, it would seem that justice may also tend to be brainless as well.

…And there are certainly times when decisions handed down would appear to substantiate the latter.

But the burning question has to be: Why?

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Myth of Duck Commander Phil Robertson exploded by writer who was an eyewitness to his Louisiana Tech football career

Posted in Uncategorized on November 22, 2017| 33 Comments »

(Editor’s note: One of my classmates at Louisiana Tech back in the late ’60s was Nico Van Thyn who would go on to an outstanding career as a sportswriter for several papers, including the Shreveport Times, Shreveport Journal and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is now retired and living in Fort Worth. While at Tech, he was a student writer under the direction of the university’s Sports Information Directors Pete Dosher, Jack Fiser and Paul Manasseh and he was an eyewitness to the career of Tech all-time great quarterback Terry Bradshaw. In addition to writing Survivors: 62511, 70726, a poignant book about his parents’ experiences as victims of Hitler’s Holocaust, he wrote the following to set the record straight about the myth surrounding Bradshaw’s predecessor, Duck Commander Phil Robertson. It is reprinted below with his permission:

By Nico Van Thyn, Guest Columnist

When it comes to his athletic career, reality star Phil Robertson—the famed “Duck Commander”—is not very real.

But he and his family are really good at spreading myths. Such as (1) he was All-State in football, baseball and track; (2) he was a major-college recruit; and (3) he had NFL potential as a quarterback.

The first part: no, no, no.

Major prospect: doubtful.

The NFL? Oh, please. No way.

Quickly: I pay very little attention to anything ol’ Phil or his relatives have to say.

He is as far-right conservative as one can get, and I don’t travel in that direction. His brand of religion isn’t mine; his social and political views … not interested.

The TV shows, videos and books about him and his Duck Dynasty family … no thanks.

But I checked for one aspect: athletics. That’s because I was around for Phil’s time at North Caddo High—30 miles north of Shreveport—and Louisiana Tech University.

We saw Phil from the opposing side in high school; we compiled the game and season stats in football as student assistant in sports information for most of the three seasons he played at Tech.

But what I’ve seen and heard from Phil & Sons is about as far from true as the length of Terry Bradshaw’s longest pass (that might’ve carried 80-85 yards) or his national-record javelin throw in high school (244 feet, 11 inches).

I wrote about Phil and Terry 4 1/2 years ago, so I will try not to repeat much of that.

So why write this piece now? It is admittedly a nitpicking, innocuous exercise … except it is like finding a resume’ that is greatly exaggerated.

It irks me to read and hear what I know is not so.

Phil’s athletics bio and story-telling are—I saw this term in a book I am reading—“stretchers.”

I wrote some of this two years ago, but held off because I could not verify what I recalled. Now having checked microfilm of the 1960s’ Shreveport Times, I can tell you this:

Phil Robertson not only was not All-State in football, he wasn’t 1-AA all-district. He was honorable mention.

(Fred Haynes of Minden was all-district, having led his team to an undefeated state championship. Then he was a starter at LSU).

Phil might have pitched for North Caddo — as his sons will tell you — and he did make all-district in ’64 … as an outfielder. But the special baseball players in Class AA in our area, the All-State guys—five of them—were at Jesuit (state champs) and Ruston (two, one a future major leaguer).

He did throw the javelin, and he did make it to the state meet. But he was second in the district meet two years in a row (a Minden athlete beat him both years), third in the ’64 regional, fourth in the state meet … and not All-State. He was not Terry Bradshaw in the javelin, not close.

Myth No. 2: A Sports Illustrated “Campus Union” story dated March 22, 2012, says: “… Robertson said he fielded offers to join the football programs at LSU, Ole Miss, Baylor and Rice.”

Can’t disprove it, but it is highly doubtful. He wasn’t that good as a high school QB, and I suspect Louisiana Tech was his best offer.

I can tell you that we had five talented QBs in the 1960s at our school that Phil could envy: three signed major-college scholarships (LSU and Arkansas); the other two signed with Tech. Three were drafted by pro football teams.

One started ahead of Phil at Tech; the other backed up Phil, but went on and won four Super Bowls.

Phil ducked his football career.

A lot of us sensed, early in 1968, that when Bradshaw’s potential blossomed—it soon did—he would replace Phil as Tech’s starting QB. My opinion: Phil sensed that, too. Losing was not fun, and he loved duck hunting.

Myth No. 3: A tryout with the Redskins.

It is so ludicrous, it is laughable. It is a joke. Nothing about it adds up. It is Phil as his BS-ing best.

He talks about this on a Sports Spectrum TV segment posted (March 25, 2013) on YouTube.

A transcript (found through a Google search) of the video follows:

So, Robertson left football and, the following season, he hunted ducks while completing his degree.

A year or so later, though, a former Louisiana Tech teammate, running back Bob Brunet, was with the Redskins and thought Robertson could still make the team. Brunet told Robertson to come up and he would likely be the backup and earn about $60,000.

“At the time, $60,000 didn’t seem like a whole lot even in the ’60s,” says Phil, who worked as a teacher for a few years after earning his degree from Louisiana Tech and then earned his master’s degree in education, with a concentration in English. 

“I said, ‘I don’t know about that. I would miss duck season, you know? I’d have to be up there in some northern city.’ I said, ‘Brunet, you think I’d stay?’ He said, ‘I doubt it. You’d probably leave with the ducks, Robertson.’ I said, ‘Probably so.’” 

“That’s when (future Hall of Fame coach Vince) Lombardi went to Washington for a few years right before he quit coaching. …What (Brunet) said was, ‘We got this hot dog, Robertson, but you can beat him out easy.’ I said, ‘Who’s the hot dog?’ He said, ‘You’re not going to beat out (future Hall of Famer Sonny) Jurgensen. You’re not going to beat him out, but this hot dog, his backup, no problem.’ I said, ‘Who is he?’ He said, ‘Joe Theismann.’”

Phil paused, smiled, then chuckled, recalling the conversation and how good Theismann became—a Super Bowl XVII champion, NFL MVP, and a two-time All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection.

“(Brunet) said, ‘No problem, we’ve got him, hands down.’

‘I may do it,’” Phil recalls says. “But I didn’t do it. I stayed with the ducks. But looking back on it, who knows if I’d gone up there, you know, I might not have ever run up on Jesus at 28.”

Now, the truth, the facts:

Lombardi coached one season (1969) in Washington. Brunet never played a regular-season game with Lombardi as coach. In fact, he quit the team.

Robert was the best back (when not hurt) we had at Tech in my time there (1965-68 seasons), a two-time all-conference player. The Redskins drafted him, and as a rookie in 1968, he had the second-most carries on the team. The coach that season was Otto Graham.

After Lombardi came in — having sat out one season following his Green Bay retirement — Brunet did not take to his fierce coaching style.

(The Great Coach was the opposite of the dignified soft-spoken legendary Tech coach Joe Aillet, and the head coach in Robert’s senior season, Maxie Lambright, was a quiet man, too, more intense than Aillet but nothing like Vince.)

So Brunet left and sat out the 1969 season, the time of Phil’s story.

Robert did return to the Redskins in the spring of 1970, with Lombardi still there. But in June, Lombardi’s fast-spreading cancer was found, and he never returned to coaching. He died before the season kicked off.

So, Bill Austin was Brunet’s head coach in ’70, and George Allen came in ’71 (and Brunet was a standout special-teams player for him into the 1977 season).

Jurgensen did not start much in 1971 through 1973. He was injured a lot and then the backup to Billy Kilmer (including a hapless Super Bowl against the “perfect” Miami Dolphins, 1972 season).

Jurgensen and Theismann were on the same Redskins team only in 1974. The “hot dog”—after three years in Canadian football—barely played that year. Kilmer started 10 games (and got hurt); Jurgensen started four (and a playoff game).

By then, Phil had been out of football seven years.

And if I have the timing correctly, Phil’s downward spiral hit in the early 1970s, and he soon was drinking and rowdy and split from his family for a time—not exactly headed for the NFL. Then he found religion.

I Don’t remember religion being a factor for Phil at Tech. His religion was hunting and fishing. In fact, Bradshaw had more of a religious leaning (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) then than Phil.

So maybe Phil and Brunet had a conversation about him playing for the Redskins. But, good gosh, what Phil tells makes no sense.

He’s told it so often, though—and written it—and his sons talk about him being All-State and “turning down a chance to play professional football,” and they all believe it now … and want the world to believe it.

Our lack of success in 1966 and 1967 wasn’t all Phil’s doing; the teams weren’t sound. But the QBs were not difference makers.

As a passer, Phil did have a quick release—Bradshaw has mentioned that often in interviews—and he had a decent arm. But not a great arm, like Terry.

Pro potential? Hardly. Alan, Jase and Willie—the sons—can twist it the way they want and repeat the un-truth.

NFL teams were not going to be interested in a guy who quit before his senior season—“to chase the ducks, not the bucks,” as he likes to say—and who in two years as a starter threw 32 interceptions (nine TD passes) and led his teams to three wins (Bradshaw, as a freshman sub, was the star of the only 1966 victory).

It was nice of Tech to invite Phil back for a September 2013 game, reunited with Terry, and to honor him. But it was for his notoriety (and Ducks success), not for his football past.

Give Phil and the Robertsons’ credit for inventiveness, ingenuity, creativity, self-promotion … and a duck dynasty.

They have millions of reasons—and dollars—to be happy, happy, happy. And I’m happy to provide the truth on Phil as an athlete.

He is out “in the woods” on so much (that’s the name of his new show on CRTV, a subscription-only channel. No subscription here, thank you).

The promotion, which I am not looking for but which is popping up regularly on my computer, says, “… just truth, from Phil’s mouth to your screen.”

Phil’s truth, not ours. If he tells you he was All-State in three sports or an NFL quarterback prospect, don’t believe him.

God-appointed messenger? You decide.

Reminds me of a friend who used to joke, “Any man who says he runs his household will lie about a lot of other things, too.”

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