Louisiana Voice

This is necessarily going to be short.

Regular readers may have noticed I’ve not been very active in my writing this past week. That’s because I’ve been extremely inactive physically.

It’s difficult to concentrate when you’re in a neck brace, fighting headaches, fatigue, and prohibited from driving for six weeks.

That’s what a C-3 through C-6 fusion will do to you. Demobilization, I call it. A pain in the neck.

Shoot, I’m not even able to talk much and those of you who know me are aware what a handicap that is for me.

I have a phobia about pain pills. Up until this procedure, I’ve always refused to use them. Not this time. When you get this kind of headache, you’ll do just about anything to make it go away.

I’ve been putting this off for some time but I finally had to face reality: my neck wasn’t going to heal itself.

My neurosurgeon, Dr. Luke Corsten, told me it was a “difficult” procedure. He has a flair for the understatement.

I was laid on my back, strapped to the operating table, my arms stretched outward and upward as far as they would go and my chin pushed upward, a position I remained in for the entire four-hour operation.

I wouldn’t be this sore after an extreme triathlon on a hot August day in Baton Rouge—without warming up.

They made a lengthy incision in the front of my throat, pushed the vocal cords out of their way and went to work doing what they do best—making people better.

And I’m here to tell you that the folks at The NeuroMedical Center and The Spine Hospital of Louisiana are the best. From Dr. Corsten down to the hospital orderlies, the personnel were magnificent. Ever been in a hospital and pressed the nurse “call” button? Did you have to press it two or three more times before finally getting someone to your room?

Not at The Spine Hospital. Push the button one time and before you could release it, someone’s in your room. And not with an attitude like you’re interrupting something important like, say, Facebook time. The staff there make you feel like you’re the most important person they’ve ever met.

Surgery isn’t pleasant, but they did their best to make it so. And I, for one, noticed and appreciated that.

Medical personnel these days want you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe.

If I had to rate their kindness and professionalism on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I give them a 15.

And lest I get scolded for omitting the most important ones in my life, Betty, you and the girls have been absolutely splendid. It’s been 50 years since I walked you down that aisle and the only thing I’d do differently today is maybe walk a little slower. Seventy-five years tend to make the footsteps a bit more deliberate and a lot more cautious.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have two cuddly pals, chihuahuas Bella and Ellie, who are waiting to curl up in my lap for our nap.

Okay, this is going to bring out all the foaming-at-the-mouth Trump supporters. But go ahead, give it your best shot. (a) I am used to your blind, hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil unwavering devotion to anyone who speaks the same hate-filled “all-hat-and-no-cattle” rhetoric as you and (b) I don’t really care because I would rather stand up for decency, honesty, and respectability than to curry favor with any of you.

Having said that, I can now turn my attention to Mr. Hominy and grits, Mr. syrup for brains, Mr. Hypocrisy himself, aka Louisiana’s junior senator John Neely Kennedy, for his latest sound bite for the TV cameras.

It’s been said that the most dangerous place in Washington, D.C. is to stand between Kennedy and a TV microphone but to tell the truth, his down-home, aw, shucks B.S. is starting to wear just a little thin, especially with his latest PROCLAMATION.

Yep, you read it right. Mr. Morality Kennedy just called Joe Biden a “creepy old man.”

Before going any further, a disclaimer is called for here. I am not a Biden fan necessarily, although I do certainly think he is far superior in intellect, honesty, decency and experience than Clown Prince Trump. Personally, I feel Biden, like Bernie Sanders and a few others (including Trump) are too old for the rigors of being the leader of the free world—if one could indeed call Trump a leader, which I certainly do not. (I’m 75, so I don’t believe I’m necessarily guilty of age discrimination in saying that—just realistic.)

But for Kennedy, a one-time fairly liberal Democrat just in case anyone needs reminding, to call Biden “creepy” and at the same time endorse and embrace every utterance and act emanating from Trump is indisputably the height of hypocrisy, duplicity, and evidence of a lack of a real moral compass. If Kennedy had an ounce of self-respect as opposed to a ton of ambition and ego, he would distance himself from Trump, who is on record, courtesy of the ACCESS HOLLYWOOD tapes, saying much, much, MUCH worse than anything Biden has ever said or done.

Trump’s payoff of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal were to cover up adulterous affairs and despite claims by Trump apologist (creator, actually) BREITBART, were most definitely not “private transactions.”

Yes, Biden crossed a line—several times. Women, for the most part, are just not comfortable with touchy-feely men and men should respect that. He also should apologize and not just slough it all off by saying he will change his behavior, as he said today.

At the same time, I cannot help but feel that with the manner in which Russia took over social media in the 2016 election, that this entire Biden business would never have surfaced had he not been the leading Democratic challenger to Trump. Now, whether some kind of character assassination was carried out by Trump or by Biden’s Democratic challengers is not certain but rest assured it was just that—a character assassination or as it is better known, dirty politics.

And it’s not the last such event that we’ll see in the upcoming presidential election. There will be others, lots of others.

Some might even say what I’m writing here is a character assassination of Trump.

Except he doesn’t need my help. He has a very rare affliction: every time he opens his mouth, he shoots himself in the foot. Very rare indeed. He is his very own walking, talking character assassination.

But this little rant is about Kennedy. If he is a true Trump loyalist, and I have no reason to doubt he is, he should never have opened that little can of worms.

After all, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

And Kennedy just heaved a big one on behalf of the resident of a very large but fragile glass house.

Maybe Kennedy, for once in his ego-driven life, should just shut the hell up.

The Southeastern Conference has finally decided to take action to burnish its tarnished image.

It’s about time.

The Kansas City Star, way back in 2012, featured a lengthy STORY about the sordid history of the conference which, when Mike Slive was appointed commissioner in 2002, half the conference’s 12 teams were either on probation or under investigation.

Slive, who died last year, retired in 2015 and was succeeded by Greg Sankey but the problems didn’t go away.

Folks still remember the controversy swirling around the alleged payments to Cam Newton in order to get him enrolled at Auburn.

But the conference is rife with such stories:

There was Pat Dye at Auburn, Charlie Pell at Florida, John Callpari, Eddie Sutton and Dwayne Casey at Kentucky, Alabama’s paying $150,000 to entice football prospect Albert Means to pay for the Tide.

Some coaches got caught up in recruiting misadventures prior to being hired by SEC schools.

Auburn assistant basketball coach Ira Bowman was suspended for violations involving the University of Pennsylvania. Auburn head basketball coach Bruce Pearl was caught up in an FBI investigation of recruiting violations while at Tennessee and Auburn assistant basketball coach, Chuck Person was charged with corruption and bribery in another FBI investigation involving then-Louisville coach Rick Pitino.

Of course, cheating isn’t limited to the SEC. There were these, to name a few:

• The Reggie Bush saga at USC;
• The academic fraud scandal at Florida State;
• The illegal cash payments to North Carolina players by a sports agent;
• The tutoring scandal at North Carolina;
• Tattoogate at Ohio State;
• God knows what-all at Miami and Oklahoma;
• A number of recruiting violations at SMU, including claims by Eric Dickerson that the school paid him while he was enrolled there;
• Michigan booster Ed Martin and the damage he did to the school’s basketball program;
• Jerry Sandusky at Penn State;
• Sexual assault at Baylor that forced Kenn Starr out as president;

And now we have our most current embarrassment: the suspension of LSU basketball coach Will Wade after FBI wiretaps surfaced in which he is allegedly heard discussing payments to a highly-recruited basketball player currently enrolled at LSU.

So, now, in a LouisianaVoice exclusive, we have learned that Sankey, with the near-unanimous backing of SEC coaches is taking action that should keep the conference at the head of the pack in NCAA athletic competition—without the stigma of recruiting violations.

A draft to replace the arduous rigors of bribing 18-year-old high school kids.

And why not?

A draft will not only dramatically slash the cost and time devoted to recruiting, but will level the playing field for the perennial have-nots like Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and South Carolina in football, practically everyone but Kentucky in basketball and several of the mediocre teams in baseball.

And it would obliterate cheating and payoffs in recruiting and take unscrupulous boosters out of the equation.

Those are just the men’s sports, of course, but to be totally honest, that’s where the most expenses are and it’s where the most cheating occurs. Women’s sports just seem to be a bit more ethical and virtuous and grounded in the true spirit of SPORTSMANSHIP.

So, now, beginning in 2020, the SEC will conduct a draft of high school prospects with the team with the worst record in 2019 drafting first, the second-worst next and so on until the reigning SEC champion drafts last.

Also like the NFL, teams may trade up in the draft in order to get a player that might not be available in the later rounds.

But unlike the NFL, the draft won’t be binding to other conferences.

In other words, if a high school player wants to play in the SEC, he must play for the team that drafts him but at the same time, he would be free to go to any other non-conference school that recruits him.

Orgeron said the SEC draft could actually be a benefit to other Louisiana schools. “If a player was drafted by, say, Missouri but wanted to play closer to home, he could stay in state and play for Louisiana Tech, ULL or some other state school that might not otherwise be in the running for his services,” he said.

Undrafted players, of course, would be free to play for any SEC school as walk-ons.

High school players could declare themselves for the SEC draft following their junior years, Sankey said. “Opting out of their senior year of high school wouldn’t put any additional academic pressure on them since once enrolled in the school that drafts them, class attendance will be, as always, optional,” he said. “We will continue to have tutors and test stand-ins for those who opt not to go to class.”

“We’ll be instituting the draft only in football and men’s basketball at first to determine if the plan is feasible,” Sankey said. “If it’s successful, as we expect it to be, we will phase in all the other sports for men and women.”

Sankey said the next step in his long-range plan to eliminate the cloud of corruption that has come over the conference far too often is expected to be approval of the payment of stipends, or salaries to players. “To help combat any negative publicity, each school will also provide free legal representation for players,” he said.

“If we can negotiate salaries with the players in the same manner as the NFL,” he said, “there’s a good chance we could keep more players for the full four years of their academic pursuits, thus increasing the conference’s graduation rate for student-athletes.”

Sanky said if salaries for players are phased in, players would also be allowed to be represented by agents.

“The times, they are a-changing,” he said, quoting from the Bob Dylan song of the ‘60s. “We have to change with them to remain competitive.”

As noted earlier, the plan was “near-unanimous” in its acceptance. LSU’s head football coach Ed Orgeron and Alabama Crimson Tide’s Nick Saban came down on opposite sides of the issues of both the draft and payments.

“Go Tigers. I think it’s a great idea,” said Orgeron. “This will allow LSU to keep some of those great players from West Monroe here in the state and maybe one day we can beat ‘Bama’s butts. Go Tigers.”

Saban, however, was vehemently opposed to the plan. “Why would I want to be the last team to draft and lose a great player that I would normally get with minimal effort?” he asked, red-faced and with veins popping out on his forehead. “Why should I get penalized for winning by making me draft last? This is just an attempt by the media to create controversy at Alabama and I’m not going to fall for it.

“Trust me, ‘Bama will continue to get the players it wants, one way or another. Some things never change.”

The initial high school draft is scheduled for one year from today.

He’s back. And this time it’s personal.

In a LouisianaVoice exclusive, we have learned Bobby Jindal has chosen today to announce that after four years of what he describes as “top to bottom mismanagement” by Gov. John Bel Edwards, he is offering himself to the people of Louisiana for a third term as governor.

“It’s the only job I’ve ever wanted,” he said in making his formal announcement.

“I’m honored that by running this year and winning, President Donald Trump may run on my coattails in 2020,” he said. “It gives me a great feeling of accomplishment to be able to strengthen his campaign by leading the fight for right this year in Louisiana and by doing so, giving him the momentum necessary to win reelection.”

As expected, Jindal said that political consultant Timmy Teepell will head up his campaign.

Also serving as a consultant for the campaign will be MARIA BUTINA.

“Maria will be a terrific addition to our campaign,” Jindal said, adding, “She would be a great choice for Secretary of Economic Development. She would get that Russian FERTILIZER PLANT completed, either in Iberville or St. James Parish.”

Jindal also said State Rep. CAMERON HENRY (R-Metairie) would be an excellent choice for Commissioner of Administration and Sen. CONRAD APPEL (R-Metairie) would be “an outstanding Chief of Staff.”

Teepell said Jindal is still young enough to break the record of four terms as governor now held by Edwin Edwards.

“There’s a lot of work to be done yet,” said Teepell. “Only Jindal can reestablish policies of no taxes, more privatization, and more layoffs of lazy state employees.

“John Bel Edwards has tried to reverse all the progressive policies of the Jindal years and our job will be to reinstate those policies,” he said.

Teepell said Jindal’s first act would be to roll back any teacher pay raises that might be enacted this year and that he would continue to oppose equal pay for women.

He added that Jindal, as in his two terms in office, would continue to sell seats on influential boards and commissions—like the LSU Board of Supervisors, the Louisiana Board of Economic Development and the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (Superdome) Board—to major campaign contributors. “If he hadn’t packed the LSU Board, he never could have privatized the state’s charity hospital system,” he said.

“Bobby Jindal, just as he did during his two terms before, will continue to support stiffer penalties for petty crimes and continued privatization of prisons,” Teepell said. “And of course, he will continue to oppose health care for the poor and home health care for the elderly.”

Jindal said he was aware of his low approval rating during his second term, much of which was spent in an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination.

“My presidential run was only to enhance my non-profit foundation so I could use it to purchase more of my books,” Jindal said. “I never seriously wanted to be president. I already had the job I wanted and now I want it back.

“I believe sufficient time has passed for voters to forget all the undeserved negatives of my previous administration, especially the second term.

“Our private polling shows that 2 percent of Louisiana voters would vote for me in the 2019 governor’s race. We find that to be most encouraging because we’ve already doubled what we pulled in our strong presidential run in Iowa and it’s still early and I am enthusiastic about our strong support.

“As someone once said, ‘You can fool some the people all of the time,’ and those are the ones we’ll be concentrating on. That’s important in politics.”

Last Tuesday’s press release from the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections read very much like the one of OCTOBER 13, 2016:

LouisianaVoice has written about ACA accreditation on several occasions because the real criteria for accreditation is not how well prisons are run but how much is paid to ACA and because of the COZY RELATIONSHIP between LDOC and ACA, going back at least as far as previous LDOC Secretary Richard Stalder, a one-time ACA president, and continuing with president secretary Jimmy LeBlanc.

But LouisianaVoice is not the only one to write about the shady accreditation procedures of ACA. Prison Legal News had an interesting STORY back in October 2014 about how the courts have taken a dim view of ACA accreditation and how accreditation does not necessarily translate into a well-run program. In fact, the story said, some prisons have experienced significant problems despite receiving ACA accreditation.

Perhaps the most critical story is the 2013 ACCOUNT of how an assistant director of probation and parole attempted in 2011 to have the department push judges to refer offenders to the Academy of Training Skills (ATS) in Lacassine, run by Chester Lee Mallett of Iowa, LA. In Calcasieu Parish. In 2012 Jindal appointed Mallett to the LSU Board of Supervisors. Jindal, in 2010, had appointed Mallett to the State Licensing Board for Contractors.

Mallett and several companies controlled by him contributed more than $30,000 to Jindal personally, $242,000 to the Louisiana Republican Party and $75,000 to the Republican Governors Association during the time that Jindal was president of the association.

Despite the memorandum from DOC, most judges and district attorneys have shied away from ACS. One judge said he threw the letter in the trash can “as soon as I received it,” and a district attorney told LouisianaVoice he wanted nothing to do with the facility.

In that same story, it was revealed that Stalder, while serving as Louisiana State Corrections secretary in 1993, canceled spending on psychiatric counseling for troubled teens so that he could give out $2.7 million in raises to his staff.

By 1995, ACA had accredited all 12 prisons in Louisiana, passing the last two with 100 percent scores, all while the head of Louisiana’s prison system was serving as ACA’s national president—an arrangement some might consider a conflict of interests. That same year, however, more than 125 prisoners sued Stalder for mistreatment within the prisons and a month after it accredited the state prison at Angola, it was reported that about $32 million in repairs were needed for it to meet safety requirements. Prisoners with fractures were splinted and then not seen for months.

Stalder rejected all the claims, saying that he and his staff deserved “a pat on the back” but in June of 1995, Federal Judge Frank Polozola criticized Stalder for the way in which he ran the state prison system.

Later that year, a doctor and a nurse reported severe problems with medical treatment at Angola. Prisoners with fractures were splinted, and then not seen for months, leading to bone deformities. Air from a tuberculosis ward was drawn into the main infirmary. A Justice Department report also found the prison’s medical records to be in terrible shape, according to Advocate reporter Fred Kalmbach.

In June of 1995, Judge Frank Polozola was critical of Stalder for his efforts to hold more inmates in the parish and private prisons of Louisiana, suggesting that Stalder was doing so in order to receive more money from the state government, which pays the sheriffs $21 per day per inmate in a private or parish prison, Advocate reporter James Minton wrote.

Polozola accused Stalder of catering to Louisiana’s sheriffs by refusing to allow state prisoners, who were supposed to be in the private prisons only temporarily, to return to the state prisons.

Just months later, Stalder was in trouble again when he allowed a can relabeling plant to open illegally at the Angola Prison. He was fined $500. Inmate William Kissinger, a legal adviser to other inmates, then sued Stalder for $600,000 after he reported the relabeling plant to authorities and was consequently removed from Angola prison and put on a prison farm.

The prison at Angola, meanwhile, received the same score from the ACA in 1996 as it did when it was first accredited in 1993.

In 1998, the new Jena Juvenile Center came under fire for widespread problems, including a near-riot, poor teaching and security and physical abuse and in 1999 the juvenile facility in Tallulah was taken under state control after five years of repeated problems with private ownership despite its having received accreditation and a positive report only six months earlier from ACA and Stalder.

Although the Louisiana state juvenile facilities attracted attention during 1997 for reports of abuse from guards at the facilities, Stalder himself was not in the spotlight until a private investigator found evidence that Stalder had allowed a priest who had been imprisoned for child molestation to receive special treatment at Wade correctional facility while Stalder was a warden there.

Because Jena’s goal was to meet the accreditation standards, The ACA was also criticized and characterized as “not highly respected…they will judge a facility on whether they have policies and procedures in written form,” wrote Times-Picayune reporter Steve Ritea.

In 2010, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) trumpeted the reaccreditation of five of its private prisons by ACA. But what CCA did not reveal was that it had paid ACA more than $22,000 for those five accreditations, that CCA employees serve as ACA auditors, that CCA is a major sponsor of ACA events or worse, and that accredited CCA facilities had experienced major SECURITY PROBLEMS.

CCA, it should be noted, is one of several private prison companies that have made major contributions to Jindal.

We can now look forward with optimism and confident anticipation to the results of the August ACA conference in Boston when the LDOC’s Division of Probation and Parole will defend the results of the audit. We just know the division will pass with flying colors—all of them green.