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Archive for the ‘Governor’s Office’ Category

Auctioneer Board attorney Larry Bankston advises denial of inspection of auctioneer files that clearly are public records

Posted in Auditor, Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on January 14, 2015| 11 Comments »

By Robert Burns

Special to LouisianaVoice

As many Louisiana Voice readers are aware, I am a former auctioneer and was appointed by Gov. Jindal to the Louisiana Auctioneer Licensing Board (LALB) during the early months of his first term. What I encountered was corruption both on the board itself and among auctioneers in the industry. I sent regular emails to the head of boards and commissions routinely expressing my shock and dismay. In less than two years, Jindal terminated my services, providing no other explanation other than, “things just aren’t working out.”

The next meeting after my termination, I began videotaping auctioneer meetings and have continued to do so to this day. I also have made occasional public records requests to view auctioneer files. My purpose in reviewing those files is that often times consumer complaints are filed and LALB attorney Anna Dow works with the complainant and the auctioneer to work the complaint out.  These solutions, however, are never even referenced to the board itself and even board members themselves are in the dark as to their existence.  Basically, Dow keeps the board members on a “needs to know basis,” and it was my experience as a board member that she deemed me to “need to know” very little. Hence, the only way anyone (board member or member of the public) can know of these complaints and other auctioneer issues is to examine the auctioneers’ files.

Louisiana Association of Professional Auctioneer (LAPA)’s founder and President, Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, and I have been concerned about the sheer number of such complaints and some troubling details of these “workouts.”  Examples include:  One auctioneer, William Jones,  deceiving the LALB for eight years about his state of residency; National Auctioneer Association (NAA) Hall-of-Famer Keith Babb threatening a complainant against pursuing a complaint against him, and complainant Robert Kite alleging collusion and shill bidding entailing NAA Hall-of-Famer Marvin Henderson and NAA Past-President Joe Wilson. None of this type of information is available anywhere but in auctioneer files. Accordingly, we decided the best thing for us to do is conduct an audit of all auctioneer files. Because the LALB is a one-person office (with the individual almost never actually working in the office but rather working from home), we knew this should be a project extended out over a 2-3 year timeframe so as not to impose too great of a burden on the office.  Accordingly, I made this simple public records request of 12/4/14 for the first 10 files. Material gleaned from the files is incorporated into this indexed webpage of auctioneers having issues with the LALB.

The one-person executive director of the LALB, Sandy Edmonds, balked at the public records requests associated with the project.  Edmonds is the same one who has been cited by the Inspector General’s Office for payroll fraud and lying about it to investigators. Specifically, she reported both to the LALB and the Interior Design Board that she was “on the clock” even though she actually was on vacation. They subpoenaed her cell phone records, after which she refused to answer any more of their questions.

Edmonds is paid $32.67/hour, or $25, 480 for the LALB and $25/hour, or $32,500 for the Interior Design Board ($57,980 total). She received numerous pay raises which Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera characterized as illegal.

In a meeting on January 3, 2013, Inspector General Lead Investigator Tom Boulton said, “There is no such thing as a performance-based employee.  It’s illegal.” Both he and Inspector General Investigator Rob Chadwick said that they found it inconceivable that the office for both boards (it’s a shared office) is almost never occupied, and both men wanted to know how much rent was being paid for an essentially-unoccupied building.

Purpera, whose office also investigated the work setup, issued this damning report, and referred the whole matter to East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore for possible prosecution of Edmonds for payroll fraud. When Vice Chairman James Sims asked what the LALB should do about the Legislative Auditor report, Board Attorney Anna Dow relayed “nothing,” and Edmonds added, “Welcome to politics,” and indicated that Jindal himself said they were not to worry about it and that the board “cannot” recover funds which Edmonds had been overpaid. Board Chairman Tessa Steinkamp said, “We have to follow the Governor.”

Why re-hash old news?  Well, at the LALB meeting of Tuesday, January 15, 2015, Board Attorney (and convicted felon) Larry S. Bankston asked the Board to deny future requests from me and to seek “legal instruction from the court.” Notice how vague he is about the timeframe of the project (i.e. he neglects to inform the board that this is a 2-3 year project.

The board did not respond to Bankston’s request for it to resist my public records requests, but in light of Edmonds’ past employment reports issued by the Inspector General’s Office and the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office, we feel the public has a right to full disclosure about auctioneer problems, and clearly this is a legal requirement Edmunds has no intention of meeting.  She has even insisted that public records requests be subcontracted out to the Attorney General’s Office, which charges $50 per hour for that service.

Just another episode of typical Louisiana political chicanery.

 

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Taking a chance on Chance: or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the proposed M6 open burn at Camp Minden

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Politicians on January 12, 2015| 19 Comments »

All you folks up in north Louisiana who have been burning up Facebook over that proposed open burn of the 15 million pounds of M6 propellant at Camp Minden need to relax.

All of you who have been in contact with Erin Brockovich in an effort to solicit advice on stopping the burn should just cool your jets.

All of you alarmist who have been saying serious health issues could result from the burn ought to go back to whatever your day job is.

And as for north Louisiana’s congressional delegation, you have your 2016 re-election to think about so perhaps you would be wise to start calling campaign contributors and stop worrying about such things as environmental toxins.

After all, as of today (Jan. 12), Chance McNeely is on the job—until next September anyway—as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Office of Environmental Compliance at a cool $102,000—a 36 percent bump from his $65,000-a-year salary in the governor’s office.

Not bad for a 26-year-old with virtually zero experience—especially considering how rank and file state employees have gone without pay raises for five years now.

The title alone should scare the bejeezus out of anyone who might endanger the health of residents by the open burning of 15 million pounds of ammunition propellant. I mean, it’s not like they’re spraying Agent Orange on the peach trees in Ruston.

Chance is a 2010 graduate of LSU (B.S. in agricultural business), which gives him four full years of experience in the real world. What more could we ask of someone in charge of compliance with environmental regulations?

Why, just look at his impressive curriculum vitae:

  • He worked for the U.S. House of Representatives from August 2010 to September 2010 (that’s an entire month, folks!);
  • He worked from September 2010 to May 2011 (nine months—almost enough time to give him tenure) as a program assistant (whatever that title entails) for the NRA (speaking of propellants);
  • He then returned to the U.S. House of Representatives as a legislative assistant in May of 2011 and remained there almost three years (that’s two years longer than Vance McAllister served the residents of Louisiana’s 5th District in Congress);
  • Since last March, he has served as a “policy advisor” for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office. We’re somewhat in the dark as to what type advice an agricultural business major with four years’ experience may have provided Jindal, who has about as much knowledge of agriculture as he does of constructing $250 million wash ‘n’ wear berms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Office of Environmental Compliance is charged with conducting inspections to ensure facilities are complying with terms of their permits, responding to complaints, evaluating of air and water conditions statewide, underground storage tank regulations and enforcement.

As DEQ liaison for the governor’s office, McNeely, 26, is said to have helped with air quality issues, landfill matters and the Explo Systems explosive issues near Minden. explo-la-4-14-site-removal-action

Well, that’s certainly a comfort. After all, Jindal was only a year older than that when Gov. Mike Foster appointed him to head the Department of Health and Hospitals.

And like Jindal, McNeely doesn’t seem destined to remain in one place long. Sources tell LouisianaVoice he plans to enroll in law school in September.

“He was completely my choice,” said DEQ Secretary Peggy Hatch of McNeely’s hiring. “He has been our policy adviser at DEQ on a number of matters. He was the first who came to my head.”

Hatch may have been more accurate to say she was told by Jindal that McNeely was her choice.

It will certainly be interesting to watch McNeely’s performance in the brewing controversy in Minden. However it plays out, it won’t be pretty.

The M6 was abandoned on site after the bankruptcy of Explo Systems in 2013. A year earlier, in October 2012, one of Explo’s bunkers exploded, rattling homes and shattering windows four miles away and creating a 7,000-foot mushroom cloud.

An ensuing investigation by state police revealed the millions of pounds of M6, used as an explosive propellant for launching artillery shells, stored in 98 bunkers scattered throughout Camp Minden. http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/local/2015/01/08/controversy-heats-open-burn-camp-minden/21468283/

The EPA has issued assurances that a controlled open burn is inexpensive and safe, with little environmental impact.

Others disagree.

“Our Louisiana politicians have allowed our beautiful state to become a dumping ground for toxic waste,” said retired Gen. Russel Honoré, leader of the Louisiana Green Army. “Our elected officials have allowed Bayou Corne, Grand Bayou, Mossville, and other communities to be polluted by their out-of-state political donors.

“The EPA-sanctioned open burn at Camp Minden without a doubt puts the health and safety of communities at risk and would not be allowed in California or Massachusetts. The good people of Louisiana deserve no less. The GreenARMY supports the citizens’ demand for accountability and their demand for no open burn at Camp Minden.”

Despite pending EPA approval of the burn, LSU-S organic chemistry professor Brian Salvatore said the EPA’s test burn was only to determine how the material burns and not the by-products in the smoke.

Salvatore said he posed the question of how much uncombusted dinitrotoluene (DNT, one of four chemicals contained in M6) escaped with the burn but was told the heat was too intense for monitoring. DNT causes cancer, he said. “It’s known as a definite carcinogen.

Other chemicals, he said, can cause birth defects and can trigger issues for those suffering from asthma. “All of these things are associated with these chemicals,” he said. “And they will happen.”

He said munitions similar to M6 were burned in Merrimac, Wisconsin in the 1970s and the chemicals leached into the area’s groundwater. He said it took years for symptoms to manifest themselves but officials are now seeing declining health among residents.

He said if the open burn takes place, residents in a 50 mile radius, from the Red River to the Ouachita River, could be affected. http://www.ktbs.com/story/27811846/lsu-s-professor-warns-camp-minden-open-tray-burn-could-cause-cancer-birth-defects

Citizens for Safe Water around Badger, an organization based in Merrimac, has been in contact with local opponents of the Minden burn.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has even gotten on board via Facebook. In a message to one Minden area resident, she said, “Change, no matter what it is, starts with you, but sometimes finding the resources for you to enable change can be difficult. It’s about creating awareness of the issues that we all should be concerned about.”

But not to worry. In Washington, the House has passed a bill that effectively prevents scientists who are peer-reviewed experts in their field from providing advice to the EPA.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) sponsored H.R. 1422, the Science Advisory Board Reform Act, which changes the rules for appointing members to the Science Advisory Board (SAB).

SAB provides scientific advice to the EPA administrator but the Stewart resolution stipulates that board members “may not participate in advisory activities that directly or indirectly involve review or evaluation of their own work.”

Said another way, a scientist who has published a peer-reviewed paper on a particular topic, say open burning of M6, will not be able to advise the EPA on the findings contained in his or her paper. This means the very scientists who are most knowledgeable about a subject will not be allowed to discuss it.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) told House Republicans: “I get it, you don’t like science. And you don’t like science that interferes with the interests of your corporate clients. But we need science to protect public health and the environment.” House Passes Bill that Prohibits Expert Scientific Advice to the EPA | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

So all things considered, it’s good to know Chance McNeely is on the job.

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Walter Monsour resigns from EBR job paying $365K, joins local firm with hefty state contracts and ties to Gov. Jindal

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Politicians on January 12, 2015| 9 Comments »

We really don’t like clichés and while it may be the pot calling the kettle black, a rose by any other name should be avoided like the plague. And at the end of the day, we like to think outside the box and avoid the low hanging fruit.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take, for example, the latest twist in the saga of Walter Monsour, erstwhile Executive Director of the Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority (RDA), an agency responsible for the redevelopment of blighted areas of East Baton Rouge Parish.

The problem was that RDA was operating on a shoestring budget of $847,000 and from that meager allocation, Monsour was drawing down $365,000 in salary and benefits—about 43 percent of the agency’s total budget.

On top of that, his son’s law firm was getting about $190,000 in contract payments from firms that received contract payments from RDA.

Mayor-President Kip Holden had earlier rejected RDA’s request for $3 million in funding from the city-parish and funding from federal tax credit programs had been drying up.

Under fire for his salary, Monsour resigned in November. In his resignation letter, he said he made his decision to leave in order to “extend the financial life of the RDA.”

Of course that’s not the end of the story. Things just don’t end that way in the realm of Louisiana politics and the politically connected.

Monsour, it turns out, has landed on his feet. He has been hired by CSRS, Inc., a self-described firm of engineers, architects, planners, surveyors and fund-sourcing experts.

Monsour joins the Baton Rouge-based firm’s “senior leadership team” and will lead a newly-formed private sector development business unit, according to an announcement by CSRS.

If the name CSRS seems familiar, perhaps it’s because we included them in our recent post about state contracts and campaign contributions to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

In that post, we discussed Jindal’s executive order to cut back on state contracts and speculated whether or not those cuts would apply to those who contributed generously to his various political campaigns.

We noted that CSRS had a $5 million contract with the state—to provide landman services on an “as-needed” basis—and that the company and its principals had contributed $10,000 to Jindal.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It turns out CSRS has been awarded 11 contracts totaling $15.2 million during Jindal’s administration and the campaign contributions total $20,000.

There were, besides the $5 million contract, which began on July 1, 2013 and will end on June 30, 2016, two others which combined to account for the bulk of that $15.2 million.

The first was a contract with the Office of Coastal Restoration for $4.1 million that ran from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2011 that called for the firm to “augment” existing professional engineering staff. Upon expiration, it was immediately renewed for $4.2 million.

As for Monsour, he may have been thrown under the bus but he’s got his game face on and it looks like a win-win situation for him as he steps up to the plate with his boots on the ground for this cash cow and you can bet he won’t leave any money on the table.

And that’s the elephant in the room.

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Jindal issues directive to slash state contracts: which of his campaign contributors will be asked to make the sacrifice?

Posted in Budget, Contract, Contracts, DHH, DOA, Finances, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Layoffs, Legislators, Legislature, Revenue on January 9, 2015| 11 Comments »

Having laid off about all the personnel he can, after cutting higher education and health care to the bone, and after selling all the state property he can and privatizing state agencies and hospitals to benefit political allies, Gov. Bobby Jindal has finally turned to his only recourse in making even deeper cuts in the state budget to cover an ever-widening deficit: state contracts.

Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice has learned that a Jindal “policy advisor” recently appointed as an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Environmental Quality will remain in that post only about nine months before enrolling in law school.

Chance McNeely, who has served as a $65,000-a-year policy analyst for the governor’s office since last March, began in his new position of Assistant Secretary for Environmental Compliance this month but is already making plans to leave.

Jindal, you may recall, has issued two hiring freezes and two expenditure reductions and even issued a directive last April that “no agency use employee transfers, promotions, reallocations or the creation of new positions in such a manner as to exceed a ceiling” imposed by the administration.

State Treasurer John Kennedy and others have been calling on the governor to cut contract expenses across the board as a means of saving money for the state but those calls have largely been ignored by Jindal who no doubt will now claim this decision as his own.

The state issued 3,576 contracts or contract amendments in Fiscal Year 2014 (July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014) totaling a little more than $3.6 billion, according to figures provided by the Office of Contractual Review.

The Office of Group Benefits accounted for 17 contracts totaling nearly $1.5 billion, the most of any state agency. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana has a $1.1 billion contract to administer the health benefits program for state employees, retirees and dependents, which accounts for most of that $1.5 billion figure.

The governor’s office, through the Division of Administration, was second highest with 807 contracts or amendments costing more than $744.2 million.

The Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) normally has the highest amount of active contracts in terms of value at any given time, but the 730 contracts/amendments approved by DHH during Fy-14 accounted for $454.9 million, third highest among state agencies.

In fiscal 2007 (July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007), the year before Jindal took office, there were 6,621 active contracts totaling $3.3 billion, up from the $2 billion in contracts during the 2005-06 (FY-07) fiscal year because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita that year. The next year’s total increased to $4.72 billion. Jindal took office in January of 2008, halfway through that fiscal year. In and to $5 billion in FY-2008-09. The number of contracts decreased from 7,286 to 6,781 that year but the cumulative amount of those contracts increased to $5 billion.

The number of state contracts continued to decline through the 2013-14 fiscal year but they increased to a high of $6.55 billion in 2011-12 even though the actual number of contracts continued to decrease to fewer than 4,800.

Across the board cuts will most likely not work as some state contracts necessarily must remain intact. Those would include contracts funded in whole or part by federal dollars in such areas as highway construction, Medicaid benefits and community development projects.

But in many other contracts it will be interesting to see if the cuts will be carried out since many of the contractors are major contributors to the campaigns of Jindal and other state politicians.

Jeez, how will the administration decide which contracts to cut?

Those contractors who don’t pony up with campaign cash are the obvious candidates.

Then there are those who give only token contributions to the governor’s political campaigns. Cuts, yes, but perhaps not so much.

But those who open up their wallets and bank accounts? No way. Gotta dance with who brung you (apologies to the late University of Texas coach Darrell Royal).

A random check by LouisianaVoice turned up 26 companies with state contracts totaling nearly $1.4 billion which, either through the companies themselves or through corporate representatives, have combined to pour more than $283,000 into one or more of Jindal’s state campaigns. That means that for every dollar contributed, the donor receives a contract of nearly $4,947. A 10 percent net profit on those contracts would mean a bottom line return of $495 for every dollar contributed—a nice investment by anyone’s standards.

Having said that, let’s take a look at some major contractors, the amount of their contracts and their campaign contributions (in parenthesis) to Jindal:

  • CSRS, Inc.: $5 million ($10,000);
  • DB Sysgraph, Inc.: $1.2 million ($5,000);
  • United Healthcare: $14.86 million ($20,000);
  • Coastal Estuary Services: $18.87 million ($18,000);
  • Vantage Health Plan: $45 million ($11,000);
  • Louisiana Health Service (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana): $1.1 billion ($7,500);
  • Alvarez & Marsal: $7.4 million ($5,000);
  • Acadian Ambulance: $4.3 million (13 contracts) ($15,000);
  • Van Meter & Associates: $8.7 million ($17,500);
  • Fitzgerald Contractors: $655,400 ($2,500);
  • Global Data Systems: $1.74 million ($5,000);
  • Sides & Associates: $4.4 million ($6,000);
  • GCR, Inc.: $10 million ($2,000);
  • GCI Technologies & Solutions: $32.5 million ($5,000);
  • SAS Institute, Inc.: $630,000 ($6,000);
  • Hammerman & Gainer, LLC: $67 million ($20,000);
  • Rodel, Parson, Koch, Blanche, Balhoff & McCollister: $3.7 million ($26,500);
  • CH2M Hill: $3 million ($13,500);
  • Burk-Kleinpeter, Inc.: $7 million ($17,500);
  • CDM Smith, Inc.: $6 million (two contracts) ($2,500);
  • Eustis Engineering Services: $3 million ($1,000);
  • Sigma Consulting: $3 million ($21,250);
  • MWH Americas, Inc.: $3 million ($5,000);
  • McGlinchey, Stafford, PLLC: $2.8 million ($17,000);
  • Faircloth, Melton & Keiser, LLC: $4.1 million ($19,000);
  • Adams & Reese, LLP: $1.33 million ($3,350);

In addition to the contributions to Jindal, four contractors also contributed to the Louisiana Republican Party: DB Sysgraph ($5,000), GCR, Inc. ($6,000), CGI Technologies and Solutions ($5,000), and Blue Cross/Blue Shield ($2,000). Blue Cross also contributed $15,500 to Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon and $2,500 to Speaker of the House Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles).

Vantage Health also contributed $10,000 to Donelon and $3,500 to Kleckley and United Health Care contributed $3,000 to Kleckley.

Another firm, Hunt-Guillot of Ruston, held a three-year, $20 million contract to perform grant management activities in connection to hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. That contract expired last June 30. Hunt-Guillot also held a five-month, $3 million contract in 2011 for additional grant management of recovery projects related to Katrina and Rita.

Hunt-Guillot made two contributions totaling $4,750 to Jindal’s campaign in 2007. Additionally, Hunt-Guillot principal Trot Hunt made two contributions of $2,500 each to Jindal during his 2007 campaign for governor.

And Jindal made a $5,000 campaign contribution to Hunt-Guillot principal Jay Guillot during his successful run for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2011, campaign finance records show.

As the vise tightens around Jindal, who is striving desperately to hold things together until he leaves town a year from now in his quest for the presidency, hard decisions will have to be made. He can’t keep firing employees and he’s run out of state property to sell.

After seven years, it may be in Jindal’s final year that the legislature finally stands up to his amateurish manner of handling the state’s finances. Speaker Kleckley, heretofore one of Jindal’s staunchest allies in the House, has come out publicly in opposition to any additional cuts to higher education. The Public Service Commission earlier refused to surrender its automobile fleet to Jindal who wanted to sell them at auction. It’ll be interesting to see who will be the next to grow a pair.

Jindal is rarely in the state these days and when he is, he is too busy taking potshots at President Obama and planning prayer meetings when he should be minding the store and doing the job to which he was twice elected. There is more than ample evidence by now that Jindal is having trouble holding things together by remote control.

To continue on his course of self-promotion at the expense of four million Louisiana citizens is the worst kind of duplicity and deceit and he most certainly deserves his near certain future of political obscurity.

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As Rep. Steve Scalise story grows, sordid details emerge about dark underside of the white supremacy movement

Posted in Fraud, Governor's Office, House, Judges, Legislators, Legislature, Media, Politicians, Senate on January 2, 2015| 43 Comments »

U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise’s claim that he did not know who he was talking to when he spoke to that meeting of the Workshop on Civil Rights hosted by the European-American Unity and Rights Conference (EURO) back in May of 2002 is coming unraveled like a cheap suit.

And so too, are the cover stories concocted by participants of that meeting who are trying to pull Scalise’s fat out of the fire.

And those accounts, with their unsavory associations and bizarre twists, constitute some of the most sordid stories imaginable, complete with bombing plots, pornography, escort services, mailing lists and dozens of politicians who subsequently went into scramble mode.

Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything” and because of conflicting memories of those involved, the coverups appear to be spinning out of control.

Thanks to stellar investigative reporting by blogger Lamar White, Scalise’s position as House Majority Whip could go the same way as that of former Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) who resigned his post as Senate Majority Leader following his association with a similar white supremacy group, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). Lott resigned from the Senate five years later and now works, along with former U.S. Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) in the powerful Washington lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs.

CCC and EURO have cross-pollinated over the years to the point where it’s difficult to distinguish one from the other with certain individuals having been—and remaining—members of both organizations.

One of those with just such dual membership is Kenny Knight of Prairieville.

Knight has publicly taken credit for issuing the invitation to Scalise to speak to the Jefferson Heights Civic Association at the Landmark Hotel in Metairie 12 years ago, but not, he said, to EURO, which was scheduled to meet in the same room later that day.

There are several problems with that story.

One, Scalise himself has made no such claim, choosing instead to plead ignorance that he was addressing a white supremacy group in 2002 while he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He makes no mention of any such civic association. http://www.businessreport.com/article/scalise-defending-amid-rising-scandal-regarding-2002-speech-white-supremacist-event

But claiming ignorance is a pretty weak defense given his comment years ago to New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Stephanie Grace that he was “like David Duke without the baggage.” http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/state/11213737-123/stephanie-grace-scalises-pitch-to

Duke, of course, was—and is—President of EURO and also addressed the Landmark gathering via teleconference hookup from Europe.

The second inconvenient snag in the failure to communicate (with apologies to the late Strother Martin of Cool Hand Luke) occurred when Knight told the Times-Picayune that he was not a member of EURO http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/12/david_duke_adviser_kenny_knigh.html

Barbara Noble, whom the Times-Picayune  said “was dating Knight” at the time of Scalise’s address (the implication being they might no longer be dating), backed up his claim. “Neither of us were members of EURO,” she said.

But while technically, Knight may not have a member of EURO, a quick check of the Louisiana Secretary of State’s corporate records reveals that he was not only a member of the organization’s predecessor, the National Organization for European American Rights (NO FEAR), he was the organization’s treasurer. (Duke changed the name to EURO after being sued for trademark infringement by No Fear, Inc.)

And what would be Noble’s motivation in having his back if she is a former girlfriend?

A further check of the Secretary of State’s web page also reveals that she and Knight both were officers of or affiliated with five separate corporate entities, three of which are still in good standing with the Secretary of State’s office.

All-American Health & Life Insurance of Metairie is not in good standing for failure to file its annual report with the Secretary of State, records show but both were listed as officers. Knight was the firm’s president she was vice president.

Southeast Solar Distributors likewise is listed as inactive by the Secretary of State. She was the company’s president and Knight its vice president when it was active, records show.

While she is not listed as an officer of T-Mart, Inc. of Prairieville, a telephone call to the business by LouisianaVoice reached her voice mail. Other active businesses in which the two are involved include Axcess Medical Clinic, Inc., of Prairieville (Knight is Director and she is Secretary) and Louisiana Men’s Clinic, Inc. of Mandeville (both are directors).

Louisiana Men’s Clinic is a facility that specializes in the treatment of erectile dysfunction http://louisianamensclinic.com/ while Axcess Medical Clinic appears to be an office complex for physicians owned by the pair.

Two months following Scalise’s address to EURO, Knight was on the Mississippi Gulf Coast representing CCC in its celebration after the Gulfport City Council voted to keep flying the confederate flag.

KENNY KNIGHT

(That’s Kenny Knight in the middle with the white shirt, brown shorts and white beard.)

Accompanying Knight at that rally was Vincent Breeding, one-time resident of Duke’s home and keeper of the EURO flame as its president while Duke served a federal prison term for fraud and tax evasion.

VINCE BREEDING

(Vincent Breeding is on the right wearing the slacks and tie. Kenny Knight is at the far left. And as one reader pointed out, these aren’t Ole Miss frat boys waving the Rebel flag.)

But Breeding, it turns out, had a much darker side. In addition to espousing the virtues of white supremacy, Christian beliefs and conservative values, he hosted an internet website which, in addition to offering graphic pornography, also provided an escort service that catered to all tastes, including black women. That would seem rather difficult to square with the EURO philosophy.

But then Duke himself once published a sexual self-help book for women entitled Finders Keepers under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt.

In 2003, Breeding was ousted from his leadership role in EURO and was succeeded by Knight but four years later, on Aug. 2, 2007, both Knight and Breeding, along with Barbara Noble, would participate in ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the Ascension Parish Chamber of Commerce.

Breeding, in addition to his porn web page and escort service and his previous employment at a Tampa strip club, once shared an apartment with one Todd Vanbiber who authorities thwarted in his plot to place 14 bombs along two major highways, I-4, the major access route to Walt Disney World, and U.S. 441. The bombings were planned for April 19, 1997, the second anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Another Duke associate, Don Black, was once shot while attempting to steal the mailing list of the National States’ Rights Party. The man who shot him was Jerry Ray, brother of James Earl Ray. Ironically, Black not only survived the gunshot, but later worked closely with Duke through his web page Stormfront and along the way, married Duke’s ex-wife.

Mailing lists, it turns out, constitute the life blood of organizations such as EURO, CCC, and the KKK. It is those mailing lists that allow the leaders of the organizations to solicit funds from those of like minds and it was just such a list that supported Duke’s lavish lifestyle that finally caught up with him.

And it was that same list that was sold to then-gubernatorial candidate Mike Foster in 1995 for $150,000. Foster failed to report the purchase as a campaign expenditure and would become the first Louisiana governor to be fined for violating the state’s code of ethics for elected officials.

But Foster was not the first by any stretch—nor the last—to be linked to such white supremacy groups. Louisiana Congressman John Rarick and Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox both were members of the old White Citizens Council, forerunner to the CCC.

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Kay Cobb addressed CCC on two occasions and Trent Lott five times, once telling its members that they stood “for the right principles and the right philosophy,” only to later claim he had “no idea” what the organization stood for (we’re beginning to detect a trend here). As nice saves go, Senator, not so much.

Lott also spoke at the 100th birthday celebration of Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, proclaiming that if the rest of the country had followed Mississippi’s lead in voting for the segregationist “Dixiecrat” when he ran for president in 1943, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years…” When Lott later apologized for his remarks, the CCC labeled him as “little more than a political prostitute.”

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was elected largely on the strength of support from CCC and his photo even appeared with CCC officers on the organization’s website and former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr delivered the keynote speech at the CCC national convention in June of 1998.

Byron De La Beckwith, the man who in 1963 murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was a CCC member as was Charles Sharpe. While serving as South Carolina’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Sharpe was arrested for accepting $20,000 in bribes to protect an illegal cockfighting ring.

And then there is Tony Perkins who, like Lott and Judge Cobb, addressed the Louisiana CCC. His appearance was on May 19, 2001 (almost exactly a year before Scalise’s appearance), when he was serving as a Republican state representative from Baton Rouge. Perkins currently serves as President of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

These are only the more prominent public officials who have affiliated themselves with these groups. There are others. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/fall/communing-with-the-council

So we have the CCC, EURO, and the KKK, which are pretty much synonymous with their interchangeable memberships, rubbing shoulders with right-wing, family-values politicians who run for cover the moment the glare of public scrutiny is shone upon them. The only thing missing from the picture are the 30 pieces of silver.

All of which must, by necessity, raise this burning question: Is the price of political fraudulence worth the wear and tear on an elected official’s integrity?

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