Louisiana Voice

He’s baaaaack!

• He’s been linked to JACK ABRAMOFF and almost went to jail along with the corrupt lobbyist who ripped off the Mississippi Choctaw Indians for $85 and the Louisiana Coushatta Tribe for another $32 million.
• He also narrowly avoided serious jail time for his role in exposing CIA agent VALERIE PLAME (it’s a federal crime to reveal the identity of a U.S. spy). The person who actually leaked her identity was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007 but granted a full pardon by Donald Trump in April 2018.
• He also played a key role in the persecution of former Alabama Gov. DONALD SIEGELMAN. Details or that scandal are particularly nasty. Rove used his influence with President George W. Bush and Bush’s Justice Department to conjure up charges of bribery against the Democratic governor who some considered a potential candidate for president.

So, now we learned that Senate Republicans have called upon KARL ROVE once again. This time, he’s being asked to oversee their fundraising program for the Georgia runoff elections. It seems the Republicans just never learn their lessons.

He will serve as national finance chair for the Georgia Battleground Fund, a joint fundraising accounted put together by the National Republican Senatorial Committee formed to benefit Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Effective as he no doubt is, Rove is damaged goods, tarnished by a string of political scandals. He also is exceedingly lucky. Any one of those aforementioned political SNAFUs could have – should have – resulted in jail time for Rove.

The Siegelman case is especially egregious.

While governor during his first term, Siegelman had visions of creating a lottery to create funds to pay for the college education of every Alabama child who wanted to go but could not afford the costs, a noble program, to say the least. Siegelman, who had held every statewide political office – secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor, was an announced candidate to again run for governor.

But when a large donor was reappointed to a state board, Rove and U.S. Attorney Leura Canary invented an elaborate bribery scheme even though Siegelman never received a cent of the contribution, the money going instead into a special fund used to promote the election to approve the lottery. The real irony was the donor was already on the board but did not desire to continue serving. He did so only at Siegelman’s urging. Did I mention that the board paid nothing to its members, who volunteered their services?

Canary, was the wife of Rove associate Billy Canary who, coincidentally, was campaign manager for Siegelman’s opponent. Officially, Leura Canary recused herself, but in reality, she took a firm hand in guiding the prosecution of Siegelman.

Add to the mix a hostile judge who had been investigated by Siegelman during his term as attorney general, and you have the perfect storm. (The presiding judge, Mark Fuller, would later be forced from office after brutally beating his wife in Atlanta’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel.)

Siegelman served most of his prison sentence at the federal detention center in Oakdale, Louisiana, the same facility where former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards served. The two became close friends there.

Dozens of current and former state attorneys general petitioned the justice department for clemency for Siegelman, to no avail, and 60 Minutes did a lengthy piece on the persecution of the former governor, courtesy of Karl Rove, the man credited with the rise of George W. Bush first to governor of Texas and later to president, only to be forced out by Bush in the wake of the Valerie Plame scandal.

For the complete story of the Siegelman-Rove saga, I would invite you to read Siegelman’s book, Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.

To learn more about Rove’s role in Plame’s exposure, you should read her book, Fair Game: How a Top CIA Agent Was Betrayed by Her Own Government. (The title comes from Rove’s own assertion that she was “fair game.”)

For more on the Abramoff-Grover Norquist-Tom DeLay affair, you’re invited to wade through the final report of Gimme Five, the Congressional Investigation of Tribal Lobbying Matters by clicking HERE.

Karl Rove is bad news anywhere he pops up but he is an effective fundraiser. He also is an extremely dirty player and wherever and whenever he is, whatever he is involved with, you can expect underhanded dealings. His track record is clear evidence of that.

Just ask Valarie Plame and Don Siegelman.

The following was posted on Facebook Monday by a person, a teacher – who is also my apolitical daughter – whose children just lost their other grandfather to Covid-19:

When mourning the loss of a loved one, we go through different stages of grief. I am in the angry phase right now. There are a few things I need to get off my chest so I can move on to the next stage of this process:

• I am disappointed in my community. When I go to Walmart and see I am in the minority for wearing my mask or when I read snarky posts from my “friends” about mask-wearing, all I can think is TOP BEING SO DAMN SELFISH! THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU! It’s about doing the right thing in order to protect our elderly, who are, quite frankly, the better part of our quickly deteriorating society – by far! GET OVER YOURSELF. When we flooded, I was proud of my community for the way in which we pulled together and supported each other to get through it. Why is this different? I have my theory which brings me to my next point.

• Wearing a mask is NOT a political statement. But NOT wearing a mask does speak volumes. It says things such as: “I’m selfish, I’m disrespectful, I have no regard for the aging community, I think I’m above the rules.” And to you, I say you shouldn’t complain when your children refuse to follow your rules because YOU SET THE EXAMPLE that they don’t have to, that the rules don’t matter. We see it in the classroom. We know who you are, because your children are the ones rolling their eyes, outright refusing, muttering under their breaths, copping attitudes, and being blatantly disrespectful when teachers tell them to put on/pull up their masks. This is the example you have set and they are following YOUR lead. We get them a couple of years; you get them their entire lives. ENJOY! You will reap what you sow.

• If you want things to go back to normal, you have to wear the mask to get the numbers down so that can happen. You all want the state to be fully open, but you don’t want to do what it takes to get there. That’s like wanting money but refusing to work. And you call yourselves Republicans. You will not get the outcome you want if you refuse to do the thing it takes to get your there. Duh. It’s baffling how willingly ignorant people can be.

• It’s NOT a hoax. It’s not a conspiracy. Just stop. The election is over – wasn’t this supposed to disappear after the election? Instead, it’s worse than ever. Or wait…maybe you’re going to now switch to the backup conspiracy theory that the Democrats just want to shut everything down again. It’s convenient that you have come up with conspiracy theories to cover both outcomes. Covid-19 getting better AND it’s getting worse, so you can continue this nonsense and ignore reality. HELLO? IS ANYONE HOME IN THERE? You can’t get 10 people in one room to agree on anything, so do you really think the ENTIRE WORLD came together to conspire and create this elaborate hoax for our election? Again, get over yourselves.

I will open this message by repeating what Michelle Obama said of Donald Trump today: It’s not a game. And I will address this to a select few recipients:

Bill Cassidy, you were just re-elected with 59 percent of the vote. Now do your damned job.

John Kennedy, you were elected four years ago with 61 percent of the vote. Do your damned job!

Steve Scalise, you got 72 percent of the vote two weeks ago but you’re pretty much worthless. But you should show a little backbone and do your damned job.

Garret Graves, you were right behind Scalise with 71 percent of the vote but you’ve been strangely quiet. Do your damned job!

Mike Johnson, you are the weak link because you got only 60 percent of the vote but you were likewise re-elected. Now grow yourself a pair and do your damned job.

It’s no longer funny to just sit back and make jokes like calling John “Mouth of the South” Kennedy by the well-earned name of Kornpone. It was funny for a while but it’s just not anymore.

Cassidy, boasting your support for “more medical options” for veterans would be honorable if you weren’t trying to rip medical coverage from 20 million Americans at the same time by working to repeal the ACA.

Graves, you give the appearance of working on behalf of flood victims but there are lot of us who have seen nothing, heard nothing. But that still is not the job you should be doing.

Scalise, you’re just an embarrassment, a homophobic white supremacist who seems to care only about the NRA despite your own brush with death from an assault weapon – from which you were saved by a….gay cop. Oh, the irony.

Johnson, with your blind allegiance to your so-called family values, you’re just irrelevant.

What am I going on about with these clowns?

Simple. One million new coronavirus cases in just the past week. Nearly a quarter-million dead Americans. Yet, our so-called president has not met with his pandemic task force in six months, he has literally been AWOL as the pandemic rages out of control. You know which pandemic I’m talking about – the one that was going to “magically disappear” after Easter, when the weather turned warmer, or on Nov. 4.

It’s the same president who refuses to work with Joe Biden, the man who won the presidency by 5.5 million votes and by precisely the same electoral vote margin as Trump did four years ago.

The same president whose General Accounting Office refuses to cooperate with the incoming administration which, despite all those emails to the contrary, is a lame-duck administration but which steadfastly refuses to enable a smooth transition at a time when this nation so desperate needs just that.

The same president who begs for contributions for his legal defense of the election in those same emails while failing to be up front about the fact that 60 percent of everything he collects goes not for his legal costs, but to his political action committee to retire his election debts.

At a time when those Republicans closest to President Tweet Thang should be whispering in his ear about the importance of helping the incoming administration cope with the pandemic, they are oh, so very strangely silent.

Especially Kennedy who so loves to impart his words of wisdom to any TV camera he can find hanging around the Senate offices. Where y’at, Senator, drinking weed killer?

The term “advice and consent” is generally used to describe the Senate’s role in the responsibility to confirm presidential appointments. It should also be extended to advising a clueless president on the importance of being president, not which club he should use on his approach shot.

It’s long past time when the Republicans in our congressional delegation should assume the responsibility of acting like statesmen instead of the political hacks they really are.

Back in 1974, Sens. Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and House Minority Leader John Rhodes, Republicans all, traveled to the White House to inform Richard Nixon that it was time to go.

Now would be a good time for a few good Republicans (I know – with this bunch, that’s an oxymoron) to do the same with Trump – or at least tell President Tangerine Toddler it’s way past time to let the Biden team go to work if he’s not willing to. It would really be nice of it was a group of Louisiana Republicans who had the cojones to do that now.

But they won’t. They don’t have the gonads. They’re eunuchs.

(You will notice I did not include Democrat Cedric Richmond, who, as a Democrat, wouldn’t have Trump’s ear in any case, Ralph Abraham, who is about the let the door hit him in the butt on his way out, or Republican Clay Higgins, who doesn’t know his ass from bean dip and couldn’t be expected to say anything halfway intelligent anyway.)

To the rest of you: do your damned jobs!

Random25617

There’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.”

—Former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Florida), at a town hall meeting, April 2012 [Does this claim sound vaguely familiar? Think Wheeling, West Virginia, February 1950]

There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.”

—QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who recently won election to Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

Another example of why it is prudent to let the process run its course: Thousands of Uncounted Votes Found a Week After Election in Puerto Rico.”

—Tweet by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has a fondness for inappropriately-placed capital letters. […and little knowledge of the fact that Puerto Rico does not vote in presidential elections.]

Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — wasn’t set up that way. You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.”

—Former Auburn football coach and U.S. Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama). [Tommy, you probably should take a civics refresher course before you assume office.]

And all this time, I thought Clay Higgins was dumb as a can of hair. Turns out he’s got plenty of company.

I had fully intended to cease posting quotes about the election once it was over – no matter the outcome. But White House Precious Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s outrageous crowd estimates for Saturday’s MAGA march (est. 20,000) is so reminiscent of her predecessor Sean Spicer’s crowd estimate for Trump’s inauguration four years ago, I just couldn’t resist. The first quote is Kayleigh’s tweet (remember now, this person is an attorney. Now ask yourself if you’d want her representing you in a court of law):

More than one MILLION marchers for President descend on the swamp in support. Best base in political history – we LOVE you guys!!!”

Here are some of the responses to her embarrassingly inaccurate crowd estimate:

LOL! ‘A million’! Well I guess seeing as you’re Kayleigh Macaroni, we should give you a point for not saying ‘a bajillion’…”

If that a million people, then Joe Biden won by 5.5 billion votes instead of 5.5 million.”

Girl, you can’t count. Maybe that’s why you are having such a hard time understanding the election results.”

The inability to tell the difference between a thousand MAGA march and a million MAGA march is another reason Trump lost the counts in GA, PA, MI, AZ, NV AND WI.”

This administration is going out the same way it came in: by blatantly lying about crowd size.”

I see that you went to the Sean Spicer school of crowd size.”

Shouldn’t you be working on your linked in profile right now?”

McEnany 11:16 am: “More than one MILLION marchers.”

Trump 3:24 p.m. “Hundreds of thousands of people.”

Trump 12:00 a.m.: “Tens of thousands of people.”