Louisiana Voice

LouisianaVoice is in its October fund drive and your support is vital to our continuing to bring you stories about political corruption, chicanery and miscreant behavior. LouisianaVoice has broken several exclusive stories in our nearly 14 years of existence, the oldest continuous political blog in Louisiana.

With the disturbing trend of the administration of Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature to make public records ever more difficult to obtain, our work will become more difficult. But LouisianaVoice is determined to continue its fight to make government and public officials accountable.

LouisianaVoice was the only news source in the entire state of Louisiana that saw through the scheme of Bobby Jindal to discredit former head of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Murphy Painter. Every other medium simply assumed Painter was guilty of malfeasance; LouisianaVoice early on said he was being set up by Jindal. And we were right.

LouisianaVoice broke the story of the legislative attempt to illegally increase the retirement of former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson. Because of our story, the ruse was discovered in time to prevent it from happening.

LouisianaVoice told you how the Jindal administration was involved in the questionable purchase of a Monroe hotel building by political supporters. We were the only news source to reveal how a Jindal and Republican donor attempted to get local courts and probation officers to refer offenders to his residential training facility and how that same individual wound up on the LSU Board of Supervisors.

LouisianaVoice kept you abreast of developments in the controversial move to privatize prisons and state hospitals and LouisianaVoice was there to remind you of how teachers died in the Sandy Hook shooting soon after Jindal told the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry that the only justification for some teachers’ existence was their “ability to breathe.”

And LouisianaVoice published several stories about individual sheriffs’ offices in the state, including Terrebonne, St. Tammany, and Iberia, among others. None of those sheriffs have sent us Christmas cards.

LouisianaVoice told the tragic story of how certain DOTD employees attempted to extort money and materials from a subcontractor and then, when DOTD refused to pay him, he was forced to shut down his company.

This is what we do. We attempt to shine lights into the darkest recesses of state and local government to let you know what your elected officials are up to. They’re not too fond of us but you have a right to know what they’re doing.

If you like what LouisianaVoice does, we invite you to support us. There is no subscription fee for LouisianaVoice because I want our information to be available to everyone. We don’t accept advertising because I don’t want anyone to think they can buy us. So, the only financial support we receive is from your generous contributions – and we come with hat in hand only twice a year – in October and April.

For this month, we’re trying to make it a bit more appealing to support us. The most generous donor will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards will be awarded on a lottery basis with everyone who contributes $100 or more eligible for the drawing. The book is signed by both Honeycutt and Edwards. Finally, a signed copy of my latest book, The Mission, will go to everyone who gives $50 or more. Because of the book’s ending, it should be explained in advance that it was originally written in 2018 as an e-book, long before recent events, but its ending reads like current news.

You may send a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, LA 70726 or you may contribute by credit card by clicking on the YELLOW BUTTON to the right of this post and following directions. Whichever method you choose, please know that I deeply appreciate your support.