Sometimes you just have to wonder what thought process is employed in the making of incredibly bad decisions.
Take, for example, recent events at the Union Parish Detention Center in Farmerville.
What transpired there in mid-April is incompetence at best and criminal at worst.
The Ruston Daily Leader reported on Tuesday, May 3, that a convicted rapist was admitted into an isolation cell where a 17-year-old girl thought to be high on meth was being held and that he raped the girl twice.
Demarcus Shavez Peyton, 28, of Homer, is being held in the detention center until his scheduled sentencing in Claiborne Parish after his conviction of aggravated rape in that parish.
Union Parish deputies confirmed that the Claiborne Parish Sheriff’s Office had told them that Peyton is known as a serial rapist and that he had been convicted of aggravated rape.
Yet, on April 19, he was allowed inside an isolation cell with the teen after she was booked into the detention center, reportedly high on meth.
An arrest affidavit reported that Peyton admitted to authorities that a detention center staff member opened the isolation cell door for him to enter and again when he was ready to leave. He further admitted to twice having sex with the victim while inside the cell.
A detention center nurse confirmed that the girl was under the influence of meth both at the time of her arrest and when she was raped. And while the victim said she could not remember much of the incident because of the meth influence, she did say that at one time during the encounter, a female guard walked up to the cell and opened the door but did nothing. She said she did not cry out for fear of her life.
As if all that were not egregious enough, Union Parish detectives said that Peyton wrote a letter to the victim following the rape telling her that she could possibly be carrying his child.
The name of the detention center staffer who allowed Peyton into the isolation cell with the girl was not immediately provided.
The Union Parish Detention Center is a public-run facility overseen by an operation committee composed of District Attorney John Belton, Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates, the Union Parish Police Jury and the Farmerville Police Chief.
No employee of the sheriff’s office or the district attorney is involved in the day-to-day operations of the jail, the Daily Leader quoted officials as saying.
While this is old news in the strictest terms of current events, this entire episode warrants a thorough investigation—and not just by the local DA and the sheriff’s office. This is an inexcusable tragedy that should be investigated by the Louisiana State Police and the Louisiana Attorney General’s office.
Normally, the attorney general does not intervene in local matters but because the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s office is one of those charged with oversight of the detention center, Belton’s office should recuse itself from the investigation immediately—as should the sheriff’s office—and an outside investigation initiated.
This is far too serious a screw-up to be left to local officials. It would amount to their investigating themselves.
One issue not addressed by local media is the existence or non-existence of video surveillance cameras. There should certainly be surveillance cameras in place that might reveal who the detention staff member was who opened the door to the isolation cell to allow Peyton access to the helpless teenager. Surveillance video might even show if that person stood by the door until Peyton was ready to exit. Video, if it exists, should also reveal the identity of the female staffer who opened the cell door during the assault but did nothing. Was it the same person who allowed Peyton into the cell?
Too many questions to be left to the locals. It was a local screw-up of monumental proportions that screams out for an independent investigation.
Our story, after all, was about one incident, that god-awful video of the deputy beating a prisoner and then turning a vicious dog loose on the man as he lay on the floor helpless to defend himself.
There were others, in the prison chapel, of all places, because there were no video surveillance there.
Ackal defeated Boudreaux in the general election last November after giving a job to the third place finisher who subsequently endorsed him for re-election—the second consecutive election in which he hired the third place finisher in exchange for an endorsement in the general election. Giving anything of value in exchange for a political endorsement is against state law.
Boudreaux, contacted by LouisianaVoice, said it has been 60 days since she lodged the ethics complaint but the commission has been strangely silent in its response. That apparently is the legacy left us in Bobby Jindal’s “gold standard of ethics” about which he was so quick to boast in his ludicrous quest for the Republican presidential nomination.
“This is a sad day for law enforcement and for Iberia Parish,” Boudreaux said, adding that it was her understanding that there will be “more to follow” she said, adding, “I just hope the good guys at the department stick around.”
LouisianaVoice will continue to monitor the Ethics Commission to determine if it is actually staffed by warm bodies or Jindalesque see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.
But back to the INDICTMENT, which brings to 10 current and former Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office (IPSO) employees who have been charged in the federal investigation of the department.
It was the plan and purpose of the conspiracy that Ackal, deputies and supervisors “would punish and retaliate against inmates and pre-trial detainees by taking them to the chapel of the (Iberia Parish Jail), where there were no video surveillance cameras, to unlawfully assault them,” the indictment said. “It was further part of the agreement that the officers and supervisors who witnessed these unlawful assaults would not intervene to stop them.”
The document charged that deputy Byron Lassalle, “understanding that Ackal wanted him to assault the detainee to retaliate against him for (a) lewd comment, Lassalle, in the presence of Ackal and Savoy, asked (Wesley) Hayes where there was a place at the jail without cameras, and Hayes responded, ‘the chapel.’”
The indictment said while the prisoner was being hit “multiple times with a baton, he “was compliant and not posing a threat to anyone” and no officer in the chapel attempted to stop “the unlawful assault.”
It said that up learning another prisoner was in jail for a sex offense, “Lassalle took his baton, held it between his own legs as if it were a penis, and forced it into (the prisoner’s) mouth,” causing him to choke.
As first and then another prisoner, while being beaten, blamed the lewd comment on someone else, deputies would bring the newest accused into the chapel to be beaten, apparently without making any real effort to determine who actually made the comment. In short, punishment, not seeking the truth, seemed to be the top priority.
If convicted, Ackal and Savoy could face up to 10 years in prison, plus fines of $250,000 for each count.
As further evidence of the complete deterioration of law and order in Iberia Parish, LouisianaVoice has obtained additional documents that show unrestrained lawlessness on the part of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.
In that case, which will be laid out in greater detail in a future post, LouisianaVoice will chronicle how deputies not only raided the home of an Iberia Parish Teach of the Year on the basis of an informant who was paid $45 by a deputy, but one of the deputies later pleaded guilty to stealing jewelry, a gun, money, and knives from the teacher’s home during the raid.
In perhaps the most implausible thing to come out of that raid was a list of evidence found in the teacher’s home that included “counterfeit five dollar bills,” prompting a retired state police officer to simply shake his head in disbelief. “Who makes counterfeit five dollar bills?” he asked rhetorically. “I’ve never seen counterfeit bills in denominations smaller than twenties.”
There is probably no more interesting sight than seeing the expression on one’s face the moment he realizes he is wrong. That look most surely crossed the face of the district attorney at some point in time.
The raid and the ensuing charges against the teacher, which cost him his job, are so egregious in nature that the district attorney’s office has offered him the opportunity to plea to a misdemeanor with no jail time, no probation, and complete expungement of his record. No such deal would ever be offered if prosecutors weren’t fully aware they had laid an egg.
The significance of that move was not lost on the teacher, Darius Sias, who has a civil lawsuit pending against the sheriff’s office. He rolled the dice in turning down the plea offer so that he could pursue his civil suit. “I want to go to trial on this,” he said.
Though it is probably far too late, Louis Ackal would be wise to take the advice of an adage steeped in indisputable wisdom of the ages.
The sheriff of Iberia Parish, however, apparently has never heard the expression attributed to a host of well-known politicians, amateur philosophers and gifted writers: “Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”
We’ll get to Ackal momentarily, but first a little background on that famous quote.
Mark Twain didn’t say it, though he is often cited as the one who coined the phrase. Neither was the quote original with publicist William Greener, Jr., as quoted in the September 28, 1978, Wall Street Journal.
The phrase of uncertain origin has also been attributed to the late Louisiana Congressman F. Edward Hebert, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1941 to 1977. A former newspaper reporter and editor for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Hebert, who died in 1979, covered the Louisiana Hayride scandals of 1939 that led to the convictions of Gov. Richard Leche and LSU President James Monroe Smith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Edward_H%C3%A9bert
Hebert, according to legend, added to the phrase when he said, “I never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the trainload.” (Emphasis added.)
The quote was intended to illustrate just how futile it is to pick a fight with a crusading newspaper. Some clarification is needed here for our younger readers: the term crusading newspaper is passé, long gone from the vernacular used to describe the style of journalism depicted in the classic movies The Front Page (the 1931 original starring Pat O’Brien and Mae Clark or the 1974 remake starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Susan Sarandon, Charles Durning, and Carol Burnett); 1940’s His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy; or of course, All the President’s Men, the 1976 movie about Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon, starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Hal Holbrook, Martin Balsam, Ned Beatty and Jane Alexander.
No, sadly, those days are long gone. Newspapers have felt the impact of the perfect storm of shrinking ad revenue and declining circulation along with waning influence as reflected in inverse proportion to the explosion of the Internet and the fourth estate. Once the epitome of independence, newspapers now find themselves subjected more to corporate pressure than to any need to inform its readership. The same gots for television news, of course, only if anything, to an even greater degree.
That famous and once chillingly accurate phrase could now be replaced by any one of several similar but equally relevant versions currently floating around out there in cyberspace:
Never pick a fight with someone who buys their bandwidth by the gigabyte.
Never pick a fight with someone who has a camera and a Twitter following.
Never pick a fight with someone who knows how to use the Internet better than you.
Never pick a fight with someone who has access to Google to prove you wrong immediately.
Never pick a fight with someone when your own video cameras or those of witnesses may contradict you.
To those might be added another pearl of wisdom: Never underestimate the intelligence of your constituency (the emergence of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz notwithstanding).
Ackal previously served as a Louisiana State Trooper where he served for awhile as a captain and Commander of Troop I. He retired abruptly in 1984 after being placed in charge of the narcotics squad of Region II which covered all of Southwest Louisiana.
He later resurfaced as a private investigator before running for High Sheriff of Iberia Parish in 2007. Now, not even four months from winning re-election sheriff, he seems not to have absorbed an iota of any of that advice about picking quarrels with those possessing generous supplies of ink and paper—and online access.
Even before he beat challenger Roberta Boudreaux last November in a runoff election, Ackal was already fighting a public relations disaster that culminated in his choosing to pick a fight with the Acadiana Advocate, sister publication of the Baton Rouge Advocate.
In March of 2014, a 22-year-old black man, Victor White, III, died after being shot while handcuffed in a sheriff’s department patrol car. Deputies said he pulled the gun and fired one round, striking himself in the back. The Iberia Parish coroner, however, ruled he was shot in the chest, immediately raising the question of how he could shoot himself in the chest with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The Iberia Parish district attorney, following a State Police report that the wound was self-inflicted, has declined to pursue criminal charges against deputies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/da-charges-handcuffed-man-police-car-shooting_us_56b8f75de4b08069c7a8548b
The family of one of the victims, Robert Sonnier, settled its resulting lawsuit with the sheriff for $450,900 and the family of Michael Jones was awarded $61,000 in his wrongful death. There were other incidents, all of which prompted U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond’s May 19, 2015 LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL LORETTA LYNCH requesting an investigation “into alleged civil rights violations of members of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”
It’s a war he can’t possibly win. As much adverse publicity as LouisianaVoice has given to the Louisiana State Police administration, Superintendent Mike Edmonson has never gone that far.
But, as those cheesy late-night TV commercials say: wait, there’s more.
First, there was his re-election campaign last fall.
He nearly won in the first primary, pulling in 47 percent of the vote. Parish Jail Warden Roberta Boudreaux got 25 percent and Spike Boudoin received 18 percent. Joe LeBlanc and Bobby Jackson won 7 and 3 percent, respectively.
Coincidentally, Boudoin announced at the same time his endorsement of Ackal in the runoff against Boudreaux. But other than the distribution of a news release announcing Boudoin’s hiring, Ackal said he would not entertain questions about the newly-created position.
Ackal won the runoff election on Nov. 21, receiving 56 percent of the vote against Boudreaux’s 44 percent.
To Jackson, it was déjà vu all over again. In 2007, he finished third with 11 percent of the vote behind Ackal and David Landry, both of whom got 42 percent. LeBlanc, who also ran in 2007, got the remaining 5 percent. After that primary, Jackson endorsed Ackal and was rewarded with a job as intelligence analyst, a role he had held in the U.S. Army. The difference with the sheriff’s department was he was denied working space, equipment and any direction as to his duties, all while being paid. He quit in disgust after little more than two months walking around “with my thumb in my rear,” he said, adding that he now sees “history repeating itself.”
Public servants are prohibited from using their positions to “compel or coerce any person or other public servant to engage in political activity,” according to the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics. Political activity is defined, in part, as “an effort to support or oppose the election of a candidate for political office in an election.”
It is also illegal for anyone to give money or anything of value “to any person who has withdrawn or who was eliminated prior or subsequent to the primary election as a candidate for public office, for the purpose of securing or giving his political support to any remaining candidate or candidates for public office in the primary or general election.” (Emphasis added.)
Robert Travis Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, told the Acadiana Advocate that Ackal’s simultaneous hiring and endorsement raises questions of whether taxpayer money, i.e. Boudoin’s salary, was used to secure an endorsement.
Tomorrow: ethics complaint, sexual harassment lawsuit and guilty pleas over beatings and dog attacks are beginning to clutter embattled Louis Ackal’s desk.
A professor of Criminal Justice and retired Louisiana State Police Officer compares drug offenses with sex crimes in Louisiana in response to David Vitter’s vitriolic political ads suggesting that releasing non-violent drug offenders will harm public safety.
By Wayne “Steve” Thompson, PhD (Special to LouisianaVoice)
According to Louisiana Revised Statute 40:967, the state of Louisiana has a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for possession of 28 grams of cocaine or crack cocaine. According to Louisiana Revised Statute 14:34, the state of Louisiana does not have a mandatory minimum for aggravated battery which includes shooting or stabbing someone. Second degree rape has a mandatory minimum of two years (LRS 14:42.1). To sum it up, a man who threatens to kill a woman so she will not resist while he rapes her is required to do less time in jail than a person with a handful of cocaine or crack cocaine.
I have personally worked cases involving drug use and drug dealing resulting in decades if not centuries of incarceration. I have served numerous warrants on drug dealers while serving on the LSP SWAT team. I have assisted in the investigation of sex crimes cases. I found it frustrating the level of leniency towards sex offenders who received less punishment than drug offenders. Leniency for sex offenders is required to make sure there is room for the statutorily mandated sentences of non-violent drug offenders. My frustrations are shared by many in the criminal justice community.
Incarceration does not work
Thirty-two percent of state felony convictions were for drug offenses in 2002 and more than 60 percent of those were sentenced to incarceration (Vanderwaal et al., 2006). There were 253,300 drug offenders in state prisons in 2005 (United States Department of Justice, 2008). The estimated cost of incarcerating these offenders is from $5 billion to $8 billion dollars per year. The average incarceration cost per offender is around $30,000 per year.
The drug war is an exercise of futility. Drug prices have gone down and the availability of drugs has increased (Caulkins & MacCoun, 2003). Long incarcerations result in higher recidivism or have zero effectiveness in reducing recidivism (Marinelli-Casey, et al., 2008; Caulkins & Reuter, 2006; Harvard Law Review, 1998; Vanderwaal et al., 2006). The user is still able to obtain drugs because there are plenty of people willing to stand in for a drug dealer when he or she is incarcerated. It is not the same for a violent offender. There is no line of violent offenders who want to step into the shoes of a sex offender, robber, or murderer. There are only victims. The incarceration of violent criminals can actually reduce the number of victimizations.
What does work?
According to Vanderwaal et al. (2006), drug treatment is more effective than incarceration in reducing drug use and reducing recidivism. Many states have realized this evidenced by numerous legislative acts which reduce mandatory minimum sentences and the establishment of over 1,600 drug courts by the end of 2004. The Back on Track (BOT) program in California is focused on first time low level drug dealers. They participate in extensive community service and meet positive goals such as school and employment requirements. If the participants successfully complete the program, they have their records sealed. Rivers (2009) reported the program has a recidivism rate of less than 10 percent and the cost is only $5,000 per participant. When this amount is compared to the reported prosecution expense of $10,000 and an annual incarceration rate of up to $50,000, it is a great success, a bargain for taxpayers.
Why does Louisiana lead the world in incarceration rates?
Research based treatment programs are a common sense alternative to incarceration that improves the ability to incarcerate violent offenders. An ad recently released in the Louisiana gubernatorial campaign condemned efforts to release up to 5,500 nonviolent drug offenders. That is 5,500 prison beds that can be used for violent offenders. The fiscal impact alone based on current incarceration costs is a savings of approximately $165 million every year. I am sure our schools could use that money.
The excessive punishments have been inspired by political popularity which also inhibits our ability to use common sense penalties and treatment. The public and law enforcement have shifted to the ideals that the drug problem is social, psychological, biological, and medical. The criminal justice system is ill equipped to deal with such problems.
Politicians are hesitant to change how we treat drug offenders for fear of appearing soft on crime resulting in damage to a political career. The fear is not created by the person who chooses innovation over ineffectiveness. The fear is created by opponents of the candidate by taking the methods out of context. I will attempt to place them in context.
Any effort to reduce the incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders through research proven treatment is a stance against violent criminals. Those who oppose such efforts are actually supporting keeping violent offenders in our midst. An attempt to create fear for political gain is described by Sheriff Tony Mancuso of Calcasieu Parish as “irresponsible” and “dangerous.”
Why do politicians think these ads work?
There is only one explanation, the perception of ignorance. The candidate must believe the voters at large have never dealt with a friend or family member who suffers from drug abuse and believe they should be treated versus incarcerated. We need representatives who will reduce our prison population with research proven best practices to make room for violent offenders. The people behind such political ads do not want violent offenders on the street and I would never make that claim. But, by putting such blatantly ignorant ads out, that is what they are facilitating.
References
Caulkins, J. P. & MacCoun, R. (2003). Limited rationality and the limits of supply reduction. Journal of Drug Issues, 33(2), 433-464.
Caulkins, J. P. & Reuter, P. (2006). Reorienting U.S. drug policy. Issues in Science & Technology, 23(1), 79-85.
Harvard Law Review. (1998). Alternatives to incarceration. Harvard Law Review, 111(7), 1863- 1991.
Louisiana Revised Statute 40:967. (2007). Prohibited Acts-Schedule II, Penalties.
Marinelli-Casey, P., Gonzales, R., Hillhouse, M., Ang, A., Zweben, J., Cohen, J. Hora, P. F., & Rawson, R. A., (2008). Drug court treatment for methamphetamine dependence: Treatment response and posttreatment outcomes. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. 34(2), 242-248.
Rivers, J. L. (2009). Back on track: A problem-solving reentry court. Bureau of Justice Statistics Office of Justice Programs. Retrieved on November 22, 2009 at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/pdf/BackonTrackFS.pdf.
United States Department of Justice. (2008). Number of persons under jurisdiction of state correctional authorities by most serious offense, 1980-2005. Retrieved November 24, 2009 at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/corrtyptab.htm.
Vanderwaal, C. J., Chriqui, J. F., Bishop, R. M., McBride, D. C., & Longshore, D. Y. (2006). State drug policy reform movement: The use of ballot initiatives and legislation to promote diversion to drug treatment. Journal of Drug Issues, 36(3), 619-648.
Editor’s note:In one of the two debates attended by Vitter prior to the Oct. 24 primary election, both he and State Rep. John Bel Edwards agreed that alternative programs needed to be implemented in order to alleviate prison overcrowding. That, of course, was before Vitter decided to ignore his own position to the issue and to paint Edwards as “soft on crime.”
As predicted, David JitterVindal Vitter has unleashed his first attack lie ad against State Rep. John Bel Edwards in their runoff campaign for governor.
Unlike the distortions and lies perpetrated against fellow Republicans Jay Dardenne and Scott Angelle leading up to last Saturday’s primary election, this ad was paid for the Vitter campaign and not his Washington, D.C.-based super PAC Funds for Louisiana’s Future (FLF).
Nevertheless, lies are lies and Vitter has shown himself to be not only shameless, but a damned cowardly liar as well.
Vitter’s newest ad has all the warmth and charm of the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad.
For a man with the sordid past of David Vitter, it seems a bit ironic that he would ever approve an ad attacking the character and integrity of another candidate. But hey, that’s Vitter who is rumored to have once asked Rosie O’Donnell if she had ever been mistaken for a man only to have her reply, “No, have you?” (How’s that for an attack ad?)
And events of last Friday (the arrest of his “investigator,” and the auto accident where he was a passenger in a vehicle driven by his campaign finance director Courtney Guastella Callihan whose home address coincidentally just happens to be the Louisiana address of FLF (although the Secretary of State’s corporate records contain no listing for FLF).
The Federal Election Commission has no authority over super PACs in state elections. Even if it did, the board is comprised of three Republicans and three Democrats and never the twain shall meet. Any oversight is left to state ethics commissions but everyone knows what Bobby Jindal did to the Louisiana Ethics Commission back in 2008, so there’s no help there.
But just in case you might be wondering, a reader has researched the criteria for coordinated communications and independent expenditures:
In order to satisfy the payment prong, the communication need only be paid for, in whole or in part, by someone other than a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, a political party committee or an agent of the above.
Content – names the candidate.
Conduct – If the person paying for the communication employs a common vendor to create, produce or distribute the communication (Emphasis ours).
Guastella has been paid $55,476 by Vitter’s Senate committee since the beginning of 2013 and $97,273 by the super PAC.
FLF paid for media that names the candidate. She is a vendor common to both Vitter and FLF as evidenced by the payments listed above and as campaign finance director and she was responsible for creating communications for the Vitter campaign.
As for that “Willie Horton” ad, one of the things claimed by Vitter was that Edwards advocates releasing 5,500 hardened criminals from prison and that he “voted for taxpayer-funded pensions for convicts.” The ad cited HB 224 as its source without providing a year for the bill.
Well, we went into the Legislature’s web page and called up House Bill 224 for 2015. That bill, it turns out, was filed by Rep. Frank Hoffman and called for the levy of an additional tax on cigarettes and never made it out of committee.
So, we moved on to 2014. That bill called for a prohibition against installers of satellite television from installing satellites on leased premises. Filed by Rep. Thomas Carmody, it was withdrawn before any action could be considered.
Rep. Paul Hollis filed HB 224 in 2013 and provided for the removal of a school bus driver for violations of certain DWI offenses. That bill passed and was signed into law by Jindal.
On to 2012. HB 224 of that year was filed by Rep. James Armes and dealt with enforcement of child support. It, too, was passed and signed into law.
Act 224 of 2011by Rep. Rick Nowlin also passed and was signed into law by Jindal. But it only increased court costs in criminal cases in the 10th Judicial District.
Only after we went all the way back to 2010 did we find the HB 224 cited by the ad. And no, the bill did not provide for “taxpayer-funded pensions for convicts.” Instead, the bill, authored by Rep. Kevin Pearson, would have required “suspension of public retirement benefits during incarceration.”
As for Edwards’s plan to release prisoners upon the helpless citizens of Louisiana, he did no such thing. Instead, he suggested a comprehensive plan to address Louisiana’s ranking as the number one state in the nation when it comes to per capita incarceration. (The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world so Louisiana, with the highest rate in the U.S., necessarily has the highest incarceration rate in the world.)
And there you have a clear illustration of how the meanings of words can be twisted and distorted in a political campaign. And yes, John Bel Edwards did vote against the bill.
So did 55 other House members as the bill failed, 56-42, with five members absent.
If 56 members voted against the bill, there must have been a reason.
There was.
A public employee pays into the retirement system his entire career and that money is earned. If the employee commits a crime within the scope of his employment, there might be an argument to be made for revoking the employee’s pension.
But suppose the employee is convicted of a crime that has nothing to do with his job? Let’s say, for example, he loses control of his vehicle and kills an innocent bystander and is convicted of negligent homicide. And it turns out he was drunk. Certainly, it would not make the employee a saint but neither should it negate his state retirement that he earned through his years of service. That’s constitutionally protected.
HB 224 of 2010 had nothing to do with providing “taxpayer-funded pensions for convicts.” It was about a blanket denial of earned retirement benefits. There’s a huge difference and that’s why John Bel Edwards and 55 other House members correctly voted to kill the bill. The real shame was that it even made it out of committee. Both the claim that Edwards wants to free hardened convicts and that he wants to provide pensions for pensions for convicts are pitifully pathetic attempts to tie Edwards to President Obama because that’s all the arrows Vitter has in his quiver.
Vitter can only resort to blatant lies to bolster his chances.
But then he has never been above lying and character assassination.
He has no integrity and we’ve already had eight years of that.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency” (U.S. Army Chief Counsel Joseph Nye, on June 8, 1954, to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings, but which could well apply today to David Vitter)
Here’s the ad. You watch it and decide for yourself if you really want someone like David Vitter operating by his own depraved code of ethics for the next four years.
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