Louisiana Voice

Over the past couple of years, a lot was written about efforts to remove Confederate statutes in New Orleans because of the perception by some that the statutes glorified a chapter of this country’s history that approved of slavery. Those opposed to the statutes said they glorified a culture of oppression.

Included among those statute was one of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate who, though recruited by the Union, eventually cast his lot with the Confederacy.

To illustrate how customs and traditions can change, LouisianaVoice, in recently conducting research for what is hoped will be an upcoming book on a completely different subject, stumbled across an interesting story in a Baton Rouge Morning Advocate from way back on Nov. 4, 1953—almost 65 years ago.

Just goes to show you never can tell what is going to strike a nerve with some people.

With today’s trend moving in a definitive direction away from honoring those associated with the losing side of the Civil War, could it be just a matter of time before the names of towns like Stonewall, Jackson, Leesville, Dixie Inn, Longstreet and the parishes of Jackson, Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis will undergo name changes?

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Only a few hours are left in our April fundraiser.

Read today’s post about the arrest of the four State Troopers. Then think back four years and try to remember who was the ONLY news source reporting on the shenanigans of State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson.

In case you don’t remember, it was LouisianaVoice!

Those arrests today would never have happened if LouisianaVoice had not first shown the glare of the public spotlight on Edmonson. In fact, Edmonson would most likely still be head of State Police and looking forward to a pension bloated by an extra $100,000 per year—were it not for our reporting.

I won’t take up a lot of space here by begging like some televangelist. I hate that. I detest coming to my readers with my hand out. But the truth is, we need to pay expenses and your generosity helps us do that.

So, if you haven’t already, and you’d like to help, please click on the yellow DONATE button below right and pay by credit card or mail your check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

Thank you,

Tom Aswell, publisher

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“Jimmy Rogers is a symptom; Mike Edmonson is the disease.”

—Anthony “Tony” Radosti, Vice President of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, commenting on Monday’s arrest of former State Trooper Jimmy Rogers, two current troopers another former state trooper. Mike Edmonson, former State Police Superintendent, was their boss.

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Only three more days of my nagging you for contributions to keep LouisianaVoice afloat. Our April fundraiser ends on Monday so you don’t have much time left to contribute to no-holds-barred investigative journalism on the home front.

While I occasionally venture out of my comfort zone and into the national political arena, I generally limit my writing to issues in Louisiana that are overlooked by a mainstream media that has been gutted by newsroom cutbacks.

It was LouisianaVoice that broke the very first Mike Edmonson story—the one about the attempt by State Sen. Neil Riser to hand him an additional $100,000 annually in retirement. Then, as events unfolded, LouisianaVoice gave scores of stories about Edmonson’s lax management style that led to low morale and corruption at State Police. We were first to announce that Edmonson was stepping down from his post.

LouisianaVoice also broke the story about Bobby Jindal’s attempt to torpedo Murphy Painter, former head of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control with trumped up federal criminal charges, charges on which Painter was acquitted with the state being forced to pay some $700,000 in Painter’s attorney fees.

From there, LouisianaVoice began following Painter’s successor, hand-picked legislator Troy Hebert. Story after story described abuses of authority by Hebert.

LouisianaVoice broke the story of the Office of Group Benefits which saw its healthy surplus slashed to peanuts by Jindal’s underhanded maneuvers designed to help him bridge his disastrous yearly budget deficits.

LouisianaVoice also broke the story of how Jindal and a handful of north Louisiana legislators swung a sweetheart deal for Vantage Health in its purchase of a state building in downtown Monroe for pennies on the dollar. Of course, several Jindal cohorts now work for Vantage.

LouisianaVoice broke stories about Superintendent of Education John White and his policies to undermine public education in Louisiana—including licensing a private school in Ruston that had no physical facilities or teachers.

Not every story is a blockbuster, of course. Some are more mundane than others. But the fact is, LouisianaVoice has worked diligently for eight years now to expose waste, corruption, and unethical practices in Louisiana government. We are currently looking at operations in the Louisiana Department of Health and have already found several areas of questionable and unethical activity.

We can’t do all this without your help—moral and financial. We have to keep the lights on and that includes chasing down countless leads (I get about 200 emails per day), paying for auto fuel and upkeep, paying for public records and even fighting off the occasional lawsuit designed to shut down LouisianaVoice.

Please help by clicking on the yellow DONATE button in the right-hand column just above my blurb on my Bobby Jindal book. That will allow you to give by credit card. If you’d rather not do it that way, you may mail your contribution to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

And please know your contribution, no matter how large or small, is deeply appreciated.

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I feel like a televangelist hitting viewers up for love offerings in exchange for a parchment paper prayer rug or a vial of sand from the mountain where I’m planning to go to pray for you (honest, I heard a televangelist offer to send sand from a mountain he had yet to travel to).

But at least I’ve not sunk to the depths of one, a Rev. Silas Strut, who offered for sale on his radio show his “Christian weight loss plan,” a cassette tape (remember those?) called “Help Me, Jesus, the Devil wants Me Fat.” He also offered a tape called “Those Satanic Smurfs,” but nothing topped the special diet plan, though I’ve often wondered about what constitutes a satanic smurf.

Anyway, I hope I don’t come off like any of those guys when I hit you up for contributions to LouisianaVoice. But the truth is, we do need some semblance of cash flow to keep the lights on.

And since I don’t accept advertising or charge a subscription fee, that leaves the old honor system as our only option. It’s Sorta like when I coached that sandlot baseball team, the Ruston Ramblers. We never charged admission (none of the teams in our old North Central League did), but we did pass the hat at games to try and raise enough money to pay the umpires and to replace lost baseballs that opposing batters routinely knocked out of sight and the wooden Louisville Sluggers that some batters were certain to break because they never learned to hold the bat correctly.

So, if you haven’t contributed yet, please consider doing so by either clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this paragraph to pay by credit card or by sending a check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

I promise not to send you any parchment paper prayer cloths or cassette tapes about special diet plans or about smurfs—satanic or otherwise. And as much as I’d like to be able to do so, I won’t promise you your contribution will bring you a financial miracle—just a continuation of coverage of stories the mainstream media doesn’t cover.

And as they said in the old Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler commercials: Thank you for your support.

Tom Aswell

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