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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

March 8, 2020 by tomaswell

“WOW! Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s doing. Honestly, I don’t think he even knows what office he’s running for!”

–Donald Trump, ridiculing Joe Biden in March 2, 2020, tweet.

 

“Glass houses, Spanky “

“I just “chocked” on my ‘hamberder’”.

 “Says the man who doesn’t know how to operate a speaker phone.”

“You can’t close an umbrella, you looked directly in to the sun during an eclipse, you think F38s are truly invisible, etc, etc, etc. You should shhhh….Or hey, if Biden is that far gone, debate him.”

“COVFEFE,
NAMBIA,
ANOLYMOUS,
HAMBERDER
CARONAVIRUS
SMOCKING GUN
PRINCE OF WHALES
GLOBAL WARNING
TEXT MASSAGES
PRESIDENT OF VIRGIN ISLANDS
PRESIDENT OF PUERTO RICO
THE ELEMENTS OF MEDICAL
MELANIE
IT WILL HEEL
LASTING PEACH
COUNCIL
UNPRESIDENTED
TAPP”

“Careful you don’t fall off that high horse onto the glass house you are throwing stones at.”

“FO covfefe drinking, hamberder eating with a smocking gun in hand man. Go find the United Shtates of America on a map without using a sharpie.”

“Is that Tim Apple on the phone? What are the oranges of this story!”

“Have you seen yourself at your rallies?”

“I’ll bet he knows how to use an umbrella.”

 “You recently misspelled your own name!”

—Samples of Twitter responses to Trump’s tweet about Biden, mostly tossing some of Trump’s own classic tweets back in his face.

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »

Hang on to your wallets: Legislature back in town and auto insurance a hot topic, but expect major lobbyist resistance

March 7, 2020 by tomaswell

Hey, folks, you want to see how your government really works for you? Read on.

In May 2018, House Concurrent Resolution 47 by State Rep. Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge) was approved unanimously by both the Louisiana HOUSE and SENATE.

The RESOLUTION called on the Louisiana Department of Insurance to “assemble a task force to address the high automobile insurance rates and (to) submit a report with findings and recommendations to the Senate and House committees on insurance by March 1, 2019.”

An 11-person task force was chosen on July 31 and Talbot, who received $19,000 in campaign contributions from insurance interests in 2019, was named chairman and Sen. John Smith (R-Leesville) was named vice-chairman. Also named from the legislature was State Sen. Wesley Bishop. [Smith was term-limited and unable to seek re-election in 2019 and Bishop in January pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.]

Other than those three, the committee was pretty much top-heavy with members from the insurance industry. Six members represented:

  • The Property Casualty Insurers Association;
  • The American Insurance Association;
  • The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies;
  • The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of Louisiana;
  • The Professional Insurance Agents of Louisiana;
  • The Louisiana Department of Insurance.

One of those is Kevin Ainsworth, a registered lobbyist who lists Progressive Insurance among clients he represents before the legislature. He also is an attorney with the politically-connected firm Jones Walker, which has contributed more than $300,000 to political candidates since 2015.

Only two of the 11 members (other than the three legislators) could be considered consumer advocates and one of those has questionable credentials as a former appointee of Bobby Jindal:

  • A representative from the Louisiana Association for Justice, an organization comprised mostly of lawyers who, for the most part, represent consumer plaintiffs in civil lawsuits, and
  • A representative (Chance McNeely) of the Louisiana Motor Transport Association.

McNeely, you may recall, is the son-in-law of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco who was APPOINTED by Jindal as Assistant Secretary, Office of Environmental Compliance at the Department of Environmental Quality at $102,000 even as the Jindal administration was laying off employees by the hundreds. He didn’t miss a beat when John Bel Edwards became governor, moving seamlessly over to the job as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development at $99,000.

Given Chance’s track record on behalf of the general public at DEQ, the wisdom of his appointment to the insurance task force is questionable at best.

The task force met exactly three times— on Sept. 13, Oct. 18 and Nov. 14—for approximately 90 minutes per session to discuss the complex problem of Louisiana’s high auto insurance rates. And while the meetings were recorded, they were not videoed.

An actuarial subcommittee was appointed and was comprised exclusively of representatives of the insurance industry. The task force never investigated the findings of the actuarial subcommittee.

Moreover, the task force’s actuary report is not posted on any public website nor is it posed in the legislative archives, or the Department of Insurance Archives.

So much for transparency.

The March 1, 2019 deadline for the submission of recommendations to the Senate and House committees on insurance came and went with no recommendations being submitted.

Talbot on March 29, 2019, filed HB 372 entitled “The Omnibus Premium Reduction Act,” named for his task force and consisting of four parts which did little to actually lower insurance premiums.

Not only was there no report released by the task force, but the report has never been made public and no further action, meetings or inquiries have been made by the task force or any of its members to the actuarial subcommittee even though the actuary subcommittee has indicated that the four reform components of the Kirk Talbot bill would not lower rates.

No matter. Talbot and the insurance industry, through radio interviews, social media and numerous newspaper editorials, trumpeted the “drastically lower premiums” HB 372 would produce. Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport), though not a member of the task force and though he never attended any of the committee’s three meetings, testified on the House floor that the task force bill had been thoroughly vetted

Even though the task force did not, in fact, “thoroughly vet” or investigate in any other manner the findings of the actuarial subcommittee, and upon information and belief by some observers that the task force was caught off-guard by the results of the actuarial subcommittee, it chose to run with the bill anyway because of political pressure from the insurance industry.

An army of lobbyists was engaged to pushing the bill through the legislature. It did pass the House by a vote of 69-30 but never made it to the Senate floor.

“It is clear…that the bill, heavily marketed by the insurance industry, was designed to increase rates under the subterfuge of reducing rates,” one opponent said of HB 372.

That’s not surprising. Several years ago, I had a legislator introduce a bill that would’ve mandated a 10% premium reduction for anyone who voluntarily took a defensive driving class, the idea being if a person volunteered for a defensive driving class, s/he would become a better driver, thus reducing the accident rate and, in the process, lower the cost of insurance claims. You’d think the insurance industry would welcome such a bill but instead, their lobbyist came out with guns blazing and shot the bill down in committee.

So now, it’s 2020 and as we are set to open a new session on Monday, no fewer than 59 bills dealing with some form of insurance have been pre-filed, 11 of which deal with auto insurance rates. Most of those 11 are redundant, with only about four separate issues actually being addressed.

And good luck getting any of those passed.

All of which goes back to my oft-repeated rhetorical question: Who do our elected officials really represent?

 

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Elections, Finances, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians | 10 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

March 7, 2020 by tomaswell

“I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh. you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, criticizing Supreme Court justices at a rally last week.

 

“Justices know that criticisms come with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

—Chief Justice John Roberts, in response to Schumer’s inappropriate blurring of the lines of separation of powers.

 

“She’s trying to shame people with perhaps a different view into voting her way, and that’s so inappropriate.”

—Donald Trump, criticizing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for her dissenting opinion on the court’s decision to lift an injunction on the administration’s immigrant “public charge” rule.

 

“Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel. The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican…”

—Donald Trump, criticizing Indiana-born judge Gonzalo Curiel in a May 2016 campaign speech.

 

“There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the forewoman in the Roger Stone case. Look at her background. She never revealed her hatred of ‘Trump’ and Stone. She was totally biased, as is the judge,”

—Trump tweet criticizing the forewoman and the presiding judge in the trial of Trump ally Roger Stone, Feb. 25, 2020.

 

Crickets.

—Chief Justice Roberts and most, if not all Republican elected officials in Washington.

Posted in Politics | 11 Comments »

No file on 11-year-old Womack murder. Besides, it’s an open investigation and ‘not a public record’: 18th JDC DA’s office

March 6, 2020 by tomaswell

That investigation into the death of Kimberly Gail Womack 11 years ago has gone from an accidental fall to an unsolved homicide that, because it has morphed into a “pending investigation,” any records pertaining to the investigation, the coroner’s report, the certificate of death, or the autopsy report are off-limits for public release.

So says Ali Zito Meronek, assistant district attorney for the 18th Judicial District.

LouisianaVoice, pursuant to it story of Feb. 19, made the following public records request of DA Ricky Ward, Jr.:

“The complete file on the investigation of the death of Kimberly Gail Womack (August 1, 2008), DOB: 08/0611959, including, but not limited to:

  • The Certificate of Death;
  • The Autopsy Report;
  • A copy of the Coroner’s Permission to Cremate;
  • A copy of the statute governing the cremation of bodies while a homicide investigation is ongoing;
  • The names of all detectives and/or officers actively involved in the investigation.

If any or all of the requested information is not subject to disclosure, please inform me in writing (as per Louisiana’s Public Records Statute) as to the reason for your denial. Also, please provide an update as to the status of this investigation as of Feb. 19, 2020.”

You can read that story by clicking HERE.

On Feb. 27, we received the following response from Meronek:

“As there was no arrest made in conjunction with this investigation, the District Attorney’s office does not have a file in its possession. Furthermore, if we did have an open file in conjunction with this investigation it is our opinion that none of the record is subject to the public records request, as this is an unsolved case that is still under investigation.

“Additionally, it is our position that there is no exception to this rule that records of pending investigations are exempt from public records requests found in LSA R.S. 44:3 which would apply to you or to the office/ entity requesting these records. Furthermore, as there has been no arrest in conjunction with this investigation of any person to date, there is no portion of the file which is public such as would be the case where there had been the arrest of a person (i.e. initial report, excluding narratives, booking information or bills of information or indictment). The case is classified as pending investigation.”

So, what First Assistant DA Tony Clayton blew off by telling Womack’s daughter Kathryn Simpson of Shreveport that she would “never know” the full story of her mother’s death is now a “pending investigation” of more than 11 years with no arrest or resolution in sight.

This case, folks, is beginning to look more and more like one of those cases authorities hope will just fade away so as to protect a married sheriff’s deputy who was having an affair with Womack. Suddenly, the person who might be considered a person of interest is the one being protected as a potential victim while a murdered woman is hopefully quietly forgotten?

Is this how justice is defined in Louisiana? Sadly, it may well be.

With Womack having suffered a side subdural hematoma from a blunt force trauma to the head as well as multiple fractured ribs and “multiple bruises and abrasions on the upper and lower extremities as well as the midfrontal region of the face,” according to the six-page autopsy report, it would seem that the deputy might have at least been questioned as to his whereabouts at the time of Womack’s death.

That’s not to say he would have been tagged as a suspect or even a person of interest. But that would have generated an investigative file, which the DA conveniently does not have.

It would be of some comfort to Simpson to at least know the Pointe Coupee Sheriff’s Office performed a cursory investigation of the scene. Simpson, for example, was initially told there no were fingernail clippings and scrapings taken from her mother’s body—only to learn later that there were. So, what became of those clippings? Were they tested for DNA? Were any neighbors questioned? Did investigators check for area surveillance cameras?

Instead, all we get from the 18th JDC DA’s office is a terse letter informing us that it has no investigative file—and, apparently, no communications from the Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Ms. Simpson would like answers and we believe she’s entitled to receive some.

Eleven years is a long time to wait for the phone to ring.

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics | 3 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

March 6, 2020 by tomaswell

“[Vladimir Putin] is not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not gonna go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down.”

—Donald Trump, apparently unaware that Russia had already annexed Crimea in a 2014 intrusion into Ukraine that left thousands dead (July 31, 2016)

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

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