“This (yesterday’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 elementary students and two teachers were killed) is not a political issue”
–Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick at today’s press conference.
Then, Mr. Patrick, please tell us what the bloody hell is it when political whores choose NRA money over common sense.
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Since 2010, there have been 152 153 mass shootings in the US, including those last week in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, California, and one in CHICAGO which escaped media attention but in which two died and another eight were wounded.
And those don’t include the innumerable one-on-one shootings that occur with increasing frequency. In Baton Rouge and New Orleans, like Chicago, we’ve become so desensitized that it’s only news now when there is not a shooting reported on the local news.
But an update of this story, posted earlier today, does include the sickening, nauseating shooting at an elementary school in Texas today that took the lives of 19 children, two teachers, and the shooter, who was taken down by Border Patrol agents.
Let that sink in. nineteen elementary school students who had done nothing to anyone and two teachers who was most likely grossly underpaid and underappreciated even as they tried to shield the kids from danger.
In those 152 153 incidents, 825 847 people have died and another 1,293 were wounded.
Many of the victims of the other 152 shootings were also children.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who, along with Donald Trump and Greg Abbott, is scheduled to speak at the NRA’s annual convention in Houston this weekend, predictably parroted the sacred 2nd Amendment right to bear arms (apparently including AR-15s, which today’s killer used in his assault. Well, Ted Cruz can go straight to hell along with those shooters who take innocent lives.
All of which kind of makes one wonder where all those open carry zealots were during those shootings. I thought the theory was the best way to stop the bad guys with guns was with good guys with guns.
But apparently, all those open carry advocates who strut around Walmart and Starbucks with their holstered sidearms to put their machismo on display for all to see just weren’t around when the killings took place.
Or maybe they just ran for cover when the shooting started.
Since 2010, Louisiana had 193 candidates for political office incumbents and other public officials who contributed more than $171,000 to the National Rifle Association (NRA), the singular opponent of reform of the ease with which Americans are able to purchase assault weapons, the armaments of choice for many of the perpetrators of the most senseless attacks.
And it’s worth mentioning that every penny of those contributions came from campaign funds, money given by campaign supporters, and not from personal bank accounts.
It’s also worth noting that every single one of the contributors bears a share of the responsibility for the needless killing that has taken place over that period. While they obviously did not bear the weapons used in the butchery, they did contribute to the mindset that has gripped this country that every slight, every perceived injustice, can be resolved with a damned gun – even if it involves the killing of innocent second-, third-, and fourth-grade children.
And “thoughts and prayers” won’t cut it anymore. Neither will saying, “This is not the time to discuss gun control.” We’re damned tired of hearing that crap. It’s time to drop the partisan bitching and act like the leaders you pretend to be. (Not that anyone expects that to happen, of course.)
Many of the “contributions” were for NRA membership dues.
STATE ETHICS LAWS allow for the payment of certain membership dues from campaign funds so long as the memberships are necessary for office holders to “stay in touch with their constituencies and/or to enhance their professional standing.” These memberships include the National Conference of State Legislatures, Common Cause, Public Affairs Research Council, etc. But paying for membership in the NRA might be considered a stretch.
Other payments appeared to simply be largesse to keep politicos in the good graces of the NRA.
Donors to the NRA include:
For some, their contributions appear to have been sound investments. Crowe, for example, received a $500 contribution from the NRA in exchange for his $125 contribution to the organization.
For his paltry $50 contribution in 2018, Attorney General Jeff Landry received a whopping $2500 back in the form of a 2020 campaign contribution from NRA.
Mizell’s $475 contribution to NRA was almost a wash as she received $500 from the NRA.
Schexnayder did a little better, getting $500 in 2020 after contributing $350 in 2012.
Others not so much. Bodi White, for example, received $500 in 2011 for his $1600 paid to NRA in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
Cameron Henry did even worse, receiving only $500 in 2019 in return for his $3084 contributed to the organization.
Likewise, Riser, who contributed $1325 over four years (2013, 2014, 2015, and 2019), received only $1000 in 2019.
Sheriff Lopinto, for his $1500 in 2018 and 2019 contributions totaling $1500, received only a $500 campaign contribution in 2015.
Seabaugh received only $250 in 2011 in exchange for his $850 paid to NRA in 2011 and 2020.
And while the NRA stiffed all the others listed above, it did open up its checkbook to some:
And each of those must search his or her conscience to learn if those campaign contributions were worth the price paid in Texas today.
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Way back in November 2010, when I launched this blog, my very first story was about a hidden legislative perk: Pentagon Barracks housing. In case you missed it then or in case you’d like to re-read it, you can do so by clicking HERE.
Back then, the highest rent paid by a legislator for what amounted to prestigious apartments in a prime location was a whopping $565 for a 1,764-square-foot apartment – double the size of the next largest (10 units that are 882 square feet each).
Anyone know of a 1700-square-foot apartment (or house) anywhere in the greater Baton Rouge area that rents for $565 per month? Didn’t think so.
Fast forward 12 years to 2022 and we find via a public records request that the highest rent paid is $500 per month by (ahem) that paragon of virtue, House Speaker Clay Schexnayder(R-Gonzales). That’s right, the rent over a 12-year period that saw prices of everything else spike, the highest rent for a Pentagon Barracks apartment actually decreased – and Rep. Schexnayder was the fortunate beneficiary.
Here is a complete list of House members who have Pentagon apartments:
And here is the list of Senators with apartments (reduce to 50% by clicking – sign for full image) Note: Francis Thompson is a former senator now serving in the House:
On the Senate side, some members actually doubled up to share costs on those exorbitant $370-per-month units. They were Sens. Jay Luneau (D-Alexandria) and Gary Smith, Jr. (D-Norco), Ed Price (D-Gonzales) and Gary Carter (D-New Orleans), Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge) and Cameron Henry (R-Metairie), Jimmy Harris (D-New Orleans and Joseph Bouie (D-New Orleans), and Barry Milligan (R-Shreveport) and Jeremy Stine (R-Lake Charles). Who says politicians can’t be thrifty – especially when it’s their own money?
But let us return for the moment to Schexnayder, who, among other things, has sold his soul to the oil and gas industry – you know, those people who are raking in record profits by jacking your gasoline prices up because…well, because they can. (They blame Biden for shutting off a pipeline that was never built, but I just can’t get around those record profits. I can’t help but notice they haven’t given him credit for enriching stockholders.)
A member of the LOUISIANA REPUGNANTCAN FRAUD SQUAD, the Cliff Clavin LOOKALIKE was initially backed by Bobby Jindal. He recently show his true colors in a fine piece of reporting by Baton Rouge Advocate reporters Tyler Bridges and Sam Karlin.
The two journalists REPORTED that Schexnayder eschewed a state-approved contractor to perform renovation work on his Pentagon apartment in favor of hiring his two stepsons, Jonathan and Beau Diez, to perform the work and then tried to hand the bill to the state.
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne refused to honor the bill for $48,462 and Schexnayder ended up paying it himself. It was immediately unclear whether the payment came from Schexnayder’s personally or whether it was paid by his campaign because the Ethics Commission’s campaign contribution/expenditure report is not current as yet.
But it is clear that Schexnayder skirted several state ethics laws in awarding his stepsons the contract. First of all, they are not licensed contractors, a condition for obtaining any state contract in excess of $50,000. Second, the cost came in just under that amount, although the costs of materials, if not included in that amount, could pushed the total well past $50,000. Thirdly, Schexnayder dodged ethics regulations regarding hiring family members because stepchildren, under the ethics regulations, are not considered immediate family, thus are exempted from nepotism prohibitions.
As a crowning touch, as it were, Schexnayder’s wife Phoebe purchased new appliances for the apartment and purchased them from Gorman Brothers in Prairieville. She just happens to be employed by (wait for it) …Gorman Brothers in Prairieville.
But that’s not the end of the Schexnayder saga. Not by any means. Louisiana is simply too rife with crass politics for that the director to yell “Print” for this scene.
The same two reporters WROTE the following day that Schexnayder had slashed the Division of Administration (DOA) budget by $3.3 million as retaliation for Dardenne’s refusal to pay Schexnayder’s stepsons’ company, DAPA Enterprises, for the renovation work.
Schexnayder was full of bluster over the issue, claiming that DOA uses the Pentagon Barracks “as a political tool.”
Speaking of political tools, Schexnayder took that $3.3 million that he cut from DOA and gave it to the lieutenant governor’s office.
Meanwhile, he is pushing his House Bill 756 hard. That bill would move the Pentagon Barracks, the State Capitol, the Capitol Annex, the Old Arsenal Magazine Museum and the adjoining grounds from DOA to the lieutenant governor’s office.
And oh, it seems that Schexnayder is indicating that he plans to run for lieutenant governor in 2023.
Louisiana politics at its best.
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New Orleans TV investigative reporter Lee Zurik cur to the heart of the problem of the State Police Commission when he questioned why a member was allowed to sit on the commission after an investigation found she had possibly committed criminal violations.
The commission has a serious public image problem in both its makeup and its history of being a rubber stamp for Louisiana State Police (LSP) administration.
In recent years:
That member, Jared Caruso-Riecke, was also identified in a video making a violent tackle on a speaker at a Mardi Gras event that has never been explained.
The State Police Commission is the special civil service agency created solely for the benefit of state troopers and has been tainted by its seemingly automatic approval of administrative actions and the necessity of putting out its own brush fires.
Caruso-Riecke, in a November 2020 deposition given in a lawsuit filed by former member Calvin Braxton, said under oath that the commission supervised state police concerning discipline “over what is appropriate and inappropriate, what they’re allowed to do …we make rules.”
The commission has been conspicuously quiet in the beating death of motorist Ronald Greene by state troopers in May 2019 and on a May 6 incident in which a motorcyclist was killed in a high-speed chase involving state police in Calcasieu Parish.
In the latter case, a veteran trooper was “low on speeding tickets,” according to a retired state trooper who said “They were messing with him over low stats.”
Officially, LSP denies the existence of ticket quotas, but LouisianaVoice had pretty much shot holes in that argument in stories published over the past five years. In this case, the trooper, a 20-year veteran, was being accompanied by his supervisor and in an effort to bump up his ticket count, he was instructed to pursue the cyclist, identified as 27-year-old John Blake Baldwin, who was clocked at 77 mph in a 55-mph speed zone on LA. 27 near U.S. 90.
The trooper would later say that traffic was heavy on the I-10 bridge in Lake Charles, particularly with 18-wheelers and that had he been alone, he would not have engaged in pursuit.
As the pursuit progressed, Baldwin accelerated to speeds in excess of 100 mph and while traveling through the intersection of Enterprise Boulevard, struck a raised concrete curb and was ejected from the motorcycle. He died 10 days later, on Monday of this week.
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Chalk one up for a citizen’s rights to overcome the unfair restrictions of qualified immunity when a law enforcement agency oversteps its authority in meting out punitive actions in retaliation for constitutionally-protected free speech.
That’s just a somewhat fancy way of saying that Jerry Rogers has zapped St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith and his deputies who arbitrarily decided they could violate Rogers’s rights in a manner reminiscent of some third world dictatorship.
U.S. District Judge Jane Triche-Milazzo ruled last Friday that Sheriff Randy Smith and his St. Tammany deputies illegally arrested Rogers, a former federal agent (and former St. Tammany Parish deputy), for the unpardonable sin of posting comments critical of the sheriff department’s futile investigation of the murder of Nanette Krentel. For the complete ruling, click here.
Smith ordered the arrest of Rogers for criminal defamation even though he was fully aware that the state’s CRIMINAL DEFAMATION LAW, which despite its remaining on the books, had been declared unconstitutional some four decades earlier.
But Smith, channeling Adm. David Farragut (“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”), had Rogers arrested despite what Judge Triche-Milazzo terms a lack of probable cause “to arrest and detain him after he sent a series of anonymous emails to the dead woman’s sister lambasting the investigation.”
Judge Triche-Milazzo’s ruling, which Smith said he will appeal, knocks down -at least in this case – a major hurdle for plaintiffs seeking damages from law enforcement agencies: qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is the legal principle that grants government officials (also including prosecutors and judges) immunity from responsibility for their actions.
The American Bar Association takes the position that qualified immunity, imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court and never enacted as official statute, is “illogical and unjust” and “fundamentally illegal.”
The ABA says on its WEB PAGE, “Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine created by the Supreme Court that shields state actors from liability for their misconduct, even when they break the law. Under this doctrine, government agents—including but not limited to police officers—can never be sued for violating someone’s civil rights, unless they violated ‘clearly established law.’
“In other words, it is entirely possible—and quite common—for courts to hold that government agents did violate someone’s rights, but that the victim has no legal remedy, simply because that precise sort of misconduct had not occurred in past cases. In the words of a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: ‘To some observers, qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly.’”
Judge Triche-Milazzo’s ruling clears the way for Rogers’s lawsuit against Smith and the sheriff’s department to go forward in December.
It’s a rare hurdle for a plaintiff to clear because of the protection normally afforded by the qualified immunity shield.
A Louisiana legislative committee, meanwhile, killed House Bill 51 by Rep. Edmond Jordan (D-Baton Rouge) in 2020 that would have repealed qualified immunity in this state.
To date, three states – New Mexico, Colorado, and Connecticut – have passed laws repealing qualified immunity for police officers. The U.S. SUPREME COURT, meanwhile, continues to perpetuate and even encourage police misconduct by protecting officers from legal liability by failing to reform the doctrine.
The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, meanwhile, seems to have hit a dead-end in the investigation of the July 2017 murder of Krentel
Smith pitched the need for tax renewals for his department but the supposed financial crunch apparently wasn’t so bad that it prevented him from purchasing a $1.3 million mobile command center and drone system – a fancy way of describing a MOTOR HOME – for his department’s “crime-fighting arsenal.
The budget-busting purchase, made in February, will obviously be a valuable tool in solving Krentel’s murder. I imagine that drone will detect all manner of clues to be forwarded to deputies as they track down the killer in the air conditioned comfort of the sheriff’s mobile command center.
A Facebook posting by local citizen Terry King said, “I would hazard a guess that Jerry Rogers certainly felt the weight of the government against him in an outrageous attempt to chill his free speech …using a law that was …unconstitutional. Let’s not forget that Randy Smith was groomed for this position by convicted child molester and former sheriff Rodney “Jack” Strain, who used his office to silence his victims. It’s an unfortunate pattern in St. Tammany Parish that needs to stop.”
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Louisiana Voice 