Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables on December 7, 2014| 3 Comments »
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his Jan. 17, 1961 Farewell Address.
“The best way for America to lead … is for America to rebuild our tools of hard power.”
—Gov. Bobby Jindal, speaking at, of all things, a Foreign Policy Initiative at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council’s meeting on Dec. 3rd.
Posted in Budget, Congress, Economy, Education, Finances, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Politicians, Revenue, Senate, Supriya Jinda Foundation on December 7, 2014| 15 Comments »
If you think Gov. Bobby Jindal has bankrupted this state with his squirrely economic policies, you need to read this.
If you are the least bit concerned about his decimation of higher education, you need to read this.
If his repetitive patchwork budgets and annual budget cuts alarm you, you need to read this.
If it bothers you that he has given away state hospitals, raided the reserves of the health plan for public employees and attempted to slash state employees’ retirement benefits while secretly having legislation introduced to augment the retirement of the state police commander by some $55,000 a year, you definitely need to read this.
If you believe he should have stayed at home to tend to the state’s business instead of gallivanting off to Iowa and New Hampshire in pursuit of a Republican presidential nomination, then by all means, you should read this.
In short, if you believe he has been a major disappointment in administering the affairs of a single state—Louisiana—you need to examine his grandiose plans for America, his plans to do to the nation what he has done to our state. You owe that much to yourselves and your children.
You see, an outfit called Friends of Bobby Jindal has a web blog of its own which, of course, is certainly their right. But curiously, in addition to touting the latest pronouncements, op-ed pieces written by Jindal and his appearances on Fox News, the page has a “DONATE” button that allows supporters to contribute to Jindal’s political campaign.
But wait. What’s he running for? He is term-limited and cannot run for re-election as governor next year and he has steadfastly refused to divulge whether or he plans to run for President (though there are few who doubt it; his family members were discussing openly during his first inauguration in 2008).
We don’t know how we got on the mailing list, but we’re certainly glad we did. Otherwise, how else could we keep up with the activities of a man on the run like Bobby Jindal?
On the latest mail-out, a “quick recap of the news about the governor’s week,” we have stories about:
It was that last one (actually first on the Friends web blog because we listed them in reverse order) that caught our attention. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/2016-gop-hopefuls-call-for-boost-in-defense-spending/
Our first reaction was: What the hell is he thinking, commenting on foreign policy and military spending when he can’t even balance the budget of a single state? But then we remembered it was Jindal and typically, he panders to the fringe element that adheres to the concept that we are the world’s policeman and that we must impose our will on others despite their resentment of our failure to respect their traditions and cultures. And we’re not just talking about Islam here. Remember Vietnam? For that matter, go back and familiarize yourself with how we took land north of the Rio Grande from Mexico. And to the American Indians (Native Americans, we one insists on political correctness), we are the original illegal immigrants.
Okay, we got off-track and started talking about his American exceptionalism op-ed and while the two issues are interlinked, let’s get back to his advocacy of increased military spending.
First and foremost, it is important to know that America already spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined. President George W. Bush’s defense spending, for example, eclipsed that of the Cold War.
Historian Paul Kennedy, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, noted that powerful nations have an unsettling habit throughout history of becoming the leading economic and leading military power and then “overreaching with their military ambitions while their economies sputter past their prime.”
Kennedy said that even as the economic strengths are on the decline, growing foreign challenges force greater and greater military expenditures at the sacrifice of productive investment which he said leads to the “downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities and a weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense.”
He said the U.S. currently runs the risk of “imperial overstretch where our global interests and obligations are larger than our ability to defend them all simultaneously.
Kennedy wrote that back in 1987 but during her run for the Democratic nomination in 2008, Hillary Clinton, like her or not, said if $1 trillion spent in Iraq had been applied instead to domestic programs, it would:
A classic example of our failure to heed the warning of President Dwight Eisenhower when he warned of the importance of resisting the influence of the “military-industrial complex” is the tar baby this country is stuck to in the Mideast.
Ike warned the country during his farewell address of Jan. 17, 1961, when he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
Back during the elder Bush’s administration, it was the defense of Kuwait against Saddam Hussein and Iraq—way back in 1991. That’s a quarter-century ago. Later, with Bush II, it was Saddam Hussein and WMD that have yet to be found. No sooner did W announce “Mission accomplished,” than we found ourselves in a conflict that, believe it or not, has now lasted longer than the Vietnam War—with no end in sight. That war has expanded into Afghanistan and now Iran with an invisible enemy called the Islamic State (IS) whom we cannot find, let alone fight.
And how much have those skirmishes cost this country? Click on this link to find out.
http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary
That $4.4 trillion includes not only the immediate $1.7 trillion cost of America’s Mideast policy, but the interest on loans to finance the war, the cost of support bases elsewhere in the world, homeland security, nation building (building infrastructure on the war-torn countries while neglecting our own infrastructure), retirement, disability and medical benefits for war veterans, etc., costs our grandchildren will be paying off after we are long gone.
And just how do we pay for these wars in Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan? World War II was financed by raising taxes or selling war bonds. Not so these modern wars, beginning with Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam; they’re financed almost entirely by borrowing which has raised the U.S. budget deficit (something of which Jindal should have a working knowledge), increased the national debt. The interest alone on Pentagon spending from 2001 through 2013 is approximately $316 billion.
To put expenditures in better perspective, consider that American taxpayers are paying:
By comparison, here are some hourly expenditures by U.S. taxpayers for other services in 2014 (with the year-to-date expenditures in parenthesis):
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
And Gov. Jindal would have the U.S. commit even more money to the Pentagon, according to a grizzled old reporter a whole year out of college (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill).
Daniel Wiser, writing for something called the Washington Free Beacon (a sister publication to the Hooterville World Guardian of the TV series Green Acres, no doubt), placed Jindal squarely in the same camp as gunslingers John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a couple of veteran Senate saber rattlers.
Wiser said that Jindal released a paper in October calling for allocating 4 percent of the nation’s GDP to defense spending.
Jindal said the U.S. is “in the process of hollowing out our military,” the article said. Jindal added that “The best way for America to lead… is for America to rebuild our tools of hard power.”
It would be bad enough if an otherwise comparatively level-headed candidate like Rick Perry or Rand Paul (everything, after all, is relative) were elected, but if Jindal had a prayer of becoming president, this would be some horrifyingly scary stuff.
The good news is we don’t have to worry about that. Perry or Paul, on the other hand…
Posted in Budget, Governor's Office, Guest Columnist, Health Care, Higher Education, Revenue, Transparency on November 21, 2014| 20 Comments »
By James D. Kirylo
Guest Columnist
Governor Jindal recently appeared on Meet the Press. The host Chuck Todd peppered the Governor with a variety of questions, asking why he didn’t expand Medicaid, being that it would be helpful for the 200,000 uninsured people in the state (although the number is likely more toward the 750,000 range).
Todd also reminded the Governor how Louisiana nearly has a billion dollar hole in our budget; how at every midyear review, our deficit has grown; how the big tax cut at the beginning of the governor’s term has not been followed by revenue; and that a majority in Louisiana disapprove of his job as governor.
Governor Jindal predictably deflected much of what Todd said, and stated at the onset that he doesn’t care about the poll numbers and never has. He also proudly mentioned that he’s cut our state budget 26 percent, cut the number of state employees 34 percent, and declared how not spending on Medicaid is another dollar we don’t have to borrow from China, and that we shouldn’t waste those federal tax dollars.
Furthermore, the Governor asserted how we’ve actually improved healthcare access and outcomes here in our state. Citing an example—how it used to take ten days to get a prescription filled—now one can get it done in ten minutes. Finally, the Governor also touted his so-called school choice program, and concluded that he has balanced the budget every single year without running deficits, and without raising taxes.
As I watched Meet the Press, listening to the least transparent governor in the nation, I was amazed, though not surprised, by what the Governor did not mention, some of which I will, therefore, do here. First, when the Governor says he does not care that the majority of Louisianans disapprove of his job as governor, it obviously means he doesn’t care what I think, what state workers think, and what the hundreds and thousands of us who have been greatly harmed by his policies think. It is obvious there is only one person the Governor cares about.
Of course, he didn’t mention that when he talks about how he has sliced and diced the state budget, it has resulted in the near decimation of higher education. Indeed, universities have been cut 80% in the last several years, tuition has exponentially risen, and the LA Grad Act is simply a devious scheme that fosters a system that unduly taxes students in order to fund higher education. In a poor state like ours, this is simply a formula that further widens the opportunity gap, and further widens the gap between the proverbial “haves” and “have-nots.”
He also didn’t mention that numerous underpaid university people have endured near poverty wages, have endured furloughs, have had no cost of living allowances now inching toward the ten year mark, that numerous individuals can’t afford health care, that top flight faculty have left the state, that public school teachers have been blamed for everything that ails our state, that Louisiana has the nation’s fourth highest high school dropout rate, that our high school graduation rate ranks 45th in the nation, that we have one of the highest childhood poverty rates in the country, and that we have the highest incarceration rate in the country, if not the world.
Of course, he didn’t mention that Louisiana ranks 50th among the states in overall health, and that we lead the nation in the highest infant mortality rate, the highest diabetes-related death rate, and the highest rate of death from breast cancer, and third-highest rate of cancer deaths overall.
And of course, he wouldn’t mention that according to a Washington Post report a short while back, the state of Louisiana is expecting a $1.2 billion budget shortfall next year, which has now risen to 1.4 billion. And this is despite the Jindal administration hiring a New York-based consulting firm for $7.3 million to find ways to generate and save revenue. Finally, he didn’t mention what can be characterized as the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) scandal, where many are asking about the half of the $500 million dollars that was in the OGB reserve fund, but is now gone.
It should be no surprise critics are calling Jindal’s handling of the budget his blind-spot. But that is not his only blind spot. The other one is that he is blind to the fact that he has hurt the lives of so many hard-working Louisianans. And the irony of ironies when the Governor concluded his visit with Meet the Press, he stated that the American Dream was in jeopardy and that should he run for president, he would focus on restoring that dream.
It was then I turned off my television set, had to shake my head, and grabbed my dictionary to double-check the definition of delusional.
James D. Kirylo is an education professor, a former state teacher of the year, and his most recent book is titled A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance. He can be reached at jkirylo@yahoo.com
Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Corruption, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Jobs, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Retirement, Revenue, State Police, Teague, Transparency on November 14, 2014| 29 Comments »
What will Gov. Bobby Jindal say when he appears on Meet the Press Sunday?
Of course we know he will attack President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare while ignoring the fact that his decision not to expand Medicaid may end up costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s a given.
At the same time he is criticizing Obama for not being more proactive on the Ebola crisis, he will fail to mention his rejection of the Medicaid expansion has been at the expense of health coverage for a couple hundred thousand low-income Louisianans.
He will condemn the president for his lax immigration policy while turning a blind eye to the indisputable fact that Latin Americans who do enter this country generally take low-paying jobs no one else wants. He won’t mention companies like IBM, Dell, ACS, and Pfizer, to name but a few, that have taken advantage of an obscure work visa (the H-1B program) to lay off more than 250,000 Americans from high-tech IT jobs. These companies lay Americans off in favor of importing hundreds of thousands of Indians who work for far less, thus saving these companies billions of dollars.
He will no doubt boast of his accomplishments as governor—claims that simply will not stand up under close examination—apparently pulled off by remote control. This is especially the case during his second term when his title would more accurately be governor in absentia. He has spent an inordinate amount of time traveling outside the state in an attempt to build support for a anemic campaign for the GOP presidential nomination that, despite his near-desperate efforts, is gaining no traction.
He could lambast the Common Core curriculum, once again ignoring that fact that he was in favor of Common Core before he was against it.
There are so many other things he could discuss but probably won’t.
He won’t mention, for instance, his abysmal record in the state’s courtrooms. One of these was his miserably failed effort to jerk retirement benefits from under the feet of active state employees, some of whom would have seen their retirement income plummet to as little as $6,000 a year—with no social security—had he been successful.
He will attempt once again to convince the nation—those of us in Louisiana know better, of course—that he has balanced the state budget while cutting taxes and reducing the number of state employees.
Yes, he has reduced the number of state employees, but at what cost? The Office of Group Benefits (OGB) is a shell of the once smooth-running state office that handled the medical claims of some 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents. Not that that matters to Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols who, we are told, is a member of the LSU health plan and thus unaffected by the changes.
And of course Jindal, through his smoke and mirrors game of premium reductions, has managed to siphon off more than half of OGB’s $500 million reserve fund. He also recently attempted to slash benefits and pile unaffordable co-pay and deductible increases onto the backs of state employees and retirees. In short, his grand scheme to privatize OGB has proven nothing less than an unmitigated disaster of politically humiliating (to him) proportions. His firing of respected CEO Tommy Teague and the mess that has ensued stand as a monument to unparalleled mismanagement and political meddling.
And his budget balancing has produced unprecedented cuts to higher education. Colleges and universities in Louisiana have seen their appropriations gouged by nearly 70 percent during Jindal’s almost seven sorry years in office. God help us if he should somehow be placed in the position of inflicting such carnage on the nation as he has on Louisiana.
And what of that claim of balancing the budget, anyway?
Let’s review.
We will take figures provided to us by State Treasurer John Kennedy that reflect the general fund balances as of Oct. 31. And while we are quick to acknowledge the fact that the numbers will certainly improve next spring when revenues start picking up from state income tax and corporate tax collections, a comparison of the last five Octobers is both startling and sobering.
As of Oct. 31 of this year, the general fund balance reflected a deficit of $924.6 million. That’s just $75.4 million shy of $1 billion—and OGB alone is losing $16 million each month.
And yes, the numbers will improve next spring but let’s look back just one year. As of Oct. 31, 2013, the balance reflected a deficit of $656.7 million. That’s nearly $268 million less in negative spending than for this year.
Still not convinced? Well, for Oct. 31, 2012, the deficit was $476.6 million, about $448 million less than for the same month in 2014.
And while it was slightly higher at $565.2 million on Oct. 31, 2011, the number for 2010 was only $181.5 million—almost three-quarters of a billion dollars billion better than this year.
In five short years, the October deficit for the state general fund balance has increased fivefold.
The historically high negative balance, which arrives just a few months into each new fiscal year (which begins on July 1), “is forcing fund borrowing to sustain cash flow,” Kennedy says. “It darkly foreshadows the challenge ahead for lawmakers and the governor in the 2015 regular session. A budget shortfall of at least $1.2 billion is expected, but it’s clearly a figure that could move. It also increases the likelihood of midyear budget cuts in the minds of some.” (The administration finally admitted this even as this post was being written on Friday. Spending for the next seven months will have to be slashed by at least $171 million because of lower than anticipated revenues.) http://theadvocate.com/news/10833948-123/state-needs-mid-year-budget-correction
And here is the rub that has Kennedy and Nichols crossing swords: Kennedy says to some lawmakers, “the negative balance is at a critical high because the state started the fiscal year with a deficit cash balance of $141 million and because expenses actually are greater than revenues,” Kennedy said.
Nichols, however, vehemently disagrees, claiming instead that the administration stumbled upon some $320 million in extra cash from prior years lying around in agencies scattered across the state which she claims gives the state an actual surplus of nearly $179 million.
The problem she has, however, is that no one believes her—including two former commissioners of administration interviewed by LouisianaVoice, both of whom say it’s just not feasible that that much money could have been just lying around all these years without anyone’s knowing of its existence.
Nichols, of course, has to maintain a brave face in order that her boss can save face.
You see, as Bob Mann points out in his latest posting on his blog Something Like the Truth, Jindal “must never have raised a tax” and “must never have presided over an unbalanced state budget” if he wishes to cling to any fading hopes of the GOP presidential nomination.
“All your advantages—your personality, your policy credentials, the importance of your state in Electoral College politics—won’t help you much if you don’t meet these basic qualifications,” Mann said. http://bobmannblog.com/
“Jindal knows Republican audiences in Iowa and elsewhere will pay him little mind if they learn about his fiscal recklessness,” he said. “So, he and Nichols tried to cover their tracks, including dishonestly blaming their budget deficit on state Treasurer John Kennedy.”
Jindal, of course, won’t address any of these issues. But were he of a mind to do so, he could even discuss on his Meet the Press appearance how he tried to frame Murphy Painter, former director of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control after Painter refused to knuckle under to demands that he look the other way on behalf of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson over Budweiser’s application for an alcohol permit at Champion’s Square. He could tell how that effort backfired and the state was forced to pay Painter’s legal bills of some $300,000. But he probably won’t
He could discuss how he attempted unsuccessfully to circumvent state law and obtain a hefty $55,000 per year increase in pension benefits for his state police commander. But most likely, he won’t.
And he could disclose how much it has cost Louisiana taxpayers in terms of payroll, meals and lodging for state police security as he jets around the country in pursuit of his presidential aspirations. But don’t expect him to.
Yes, Jindal could discuss these and other matters during Sunday’s program, but he won’t.
The simple fact is, by virtue of his bottom-feeding position as the anchor in the GOP nominee sweepstakes, he just can’t afford to.
And saddest of all, no one on the program’s panel is likely to inquire about these issues.
Posted in Attorney General, Budget, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Fire Marshal, State Police, Transparency on November 4, 2014| 2 Comments »
What kind of person, serving as a municipal fire chief, would purchase ribbons and decorations of previous conflicts from a military surplus store and pen them on his own uniform?
Apparently the kind of person that Deputy Secretary of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Gov. Bobby Jindal would want to protect even to the point of prevailing upon an ally in the legislature to file an amendment to abolish the very agency conducting an investigation of that and other offenses.
At the same time State Fire Marshal Butch Browning was being reinstated in May of 2012 by his boss, Mike Edmonson who serves as both State Police Superintendent and Deputy Secretary of DPS, State Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Napoleonville) was introducing an amendment to House Bill 1, the state’s operating budget, to pull the $1.7 million funding for the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in the middle of OIG’s investigation of allegations of payroll fraud and a sloppy inspection of a carnival ride in Greensburg only seven hours before teenage siblings were injured by the ride.
The timing of the amendment was enough to make you toss your lunch of stone cold ethics and hot back room politics.
Browning “retired” on April 18 in the middle of that investigation but returned just 12 days later, on April 30, with an $8,000-per-year increase in pay after being “cleared” by Edmonson of any wrongdoing—six months before an investigative report by OIG was even issued.
But if Jindal and his co-conspirators intended to thwart the investigation by abolishing the agency led by Stephen Street, those efforts wilted in a backlash of public support for the office immediately ensued which caused the legislature—and Jindal—to back down from the effort despite a favorable 11-5 vote on Harrison’s amendment by the House Appropriations Committee.
Remember, this is the same governor who two years later would attempt to sneak through another amendment granting Edmonson a lucrative $55,000-a-year increase in retirement benefits only to have that plan crash and burn when LouisianaVoice learned of the implications of the amendment by State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia).
OIG serves as white-collar watchdog and as an internal affairs division within state government but Harrison, in offering his amendment, argued that OIG’s functions overlapped those of State Police and the Attorney General’s Office.
As we have already seen, State Police, under the direction of Edmonson, gave Browning high marks in exonerating him from any wrongdoing and as we have also seen in other matters, the Attorney General’s Office is more than a little reluctant to involve itself in the investigation of any state agency—except of course in a situation such as that of former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein where the feds are already actively investigating a questionable contract with Greenstein’s former employer.
In that case, Attorney General intervention made good press.
In fact, since the 1974 State Constitution was adopted over the objections of then-Attorney General Billy Guste, the Attorney General’s duties are primarily restricted to defending state agencies, not investigating them and can generally enter a local matter at the express invitation of the local district attorney. In fact, the Attorney General has even begged off certain investigative matters, citing a potential conflict of interest should his office be called to defend or represent the agency.
Hammond attorney and state government watchdog C.B. Forgotston, former chief counsel for the House Appropriations Committee disagreed with Harrison’s contention that the OIG is “pretty much redundant.”
Forgotston said the office might be redundant “if any other agency in the state was stopping waste and fraud within the executive branch. Nobody at the state level is pursuing corruption in Louisiana,” he said.
Street said he linked his office’s funding to the amount of money it uncovers through wrongdoing by state officials and contractors. OIG’s annual report in 2012 showed the office had uncovered $3.2 million in fraud and waste the previous fiscal year, nearly double the office’s $1.7 million budget appropriation.
The reaction to Harrison’s bill and to Jindal’s transparent ploy was immediate.
“Is it a bargain to spend $1 to root out nearly $2 in fraud in Louisiana?” the Lake Charles American Press asked in a May 15, 2012, editorial. http://www.americanpress.com/AP-Editorial-5-16-12
“Apparently, some members of the state Legislature don’t think so,” the editorial said, adding that Harrison had admitted that he did not agree with the OIG’s investigation of Browning. He said there should have been no investigation in the first place but Street said his office had received a complaint (from the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission) about how Browning was doing his job and so he launched an investigation. “I was told if you do this (job) right, you’ll eventually have people trying to shut you down,” Street was quoted by the paper as saying.
The editorial disagreed with Harrison’s claim that State Police and the Attorney General’s Office could take up the slack. “The attorney general in Louisiana is too much of a political species to launch investigations into wrongdoing by other politicians or political agencies,” it said in something of an understatement. “An office that ferrets out nearly $2 in fraud for every $1 it costs is too valuable to Louisiana to eliminate.”
The non-partisan Public Affairs Research Council (PAR) agreed. “The state needs a self-motivated watchdog agency to stop waste, mismanagement, abuse and fraud in executive-branch government,” it said in a May 7, 2012, news release. http://www.parlouisiana.com/explore.cfm/parpublications/commentariesandletters/100092
“Stephen Street… is a former criminal staff lawyer with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, a former public defender and a former Section Chief with the state Attorney General’s Insurance Fraud Support Unit who handled white-collar prosecutions. He has extensive experience teaching courses on white-collar crime investigation,” the PAR release said.
“A sudden halt in funding of the Inspector General would terminate ongoing investigations and send a message nationwide that Louisiana government is open for corrupt or wasteful business. Lawmakers who oppose continued funding of the office while also criticizing particular ongoing investigations are running the risk of deeply politicizing the state’s law enforcement systems. If these efforts at shutting down the Inspector General’s office are successful, their effect will be to strongly encourage further political interference in the law enforcement profession throughout the state,” the release said.
James Gill, then a columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, wasn’t nearly as charitable. As only he can, Gill noted that Edmonson had exonerated and reinstated Browning even before Street’s investigation was complete. Then came Gill’s zinger: “Perhaps Edmonson forgot that he had claimed Browning’s resignation had nothing to do with the allegations against him.” http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/battle_over_funding_for_louisi.html
Gill quoted Harrison as claiming that he had thought for two years that Louisiana did not need an inspector general. “Anyone but a politician would be carted off to the funny farm for saying that,” he wrote, adding that despite Harrison’s claim that his amendment had nothing to do with Browning, he launched into “a passionate denunciation of the inspector general’s office over its treatment of browning.” Gill quoted Harrison as saying no good investigator “would bring it (the investigation) to this point without verifying information.”
“Even a politician deserves a trip to the funny farm for spouting such nonsense,” said Gill at his derisive best.
But even more to the point, Gill observed that “Since Browning has already been returned to duty, it may not matter much what conclusions the inspector general reaches.”
May not indeed. This administration is, after all, the gold standard of ethics.
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Louisiana Voice 