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Sen. John Kennedy, the authority on state fiscal matters, also apparently is an authority on federal investigations

May 25, 2018 by tomaswell

He probably won’t make the formal announcement of his candidacy for governor until September or October, but make no mistake about it, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy is in full campaign mode. If there had been in lingering doubts before, that much was made evident Wednesday by his inappropriate yet totally predictable CALL for Robert Mueller to end his investigation of the man on whose coattails Kennedy ran for—and won—his senate seat.

This was more than Kennedy’s typical down-home, cornball, Will Rogers country feed store philosophy that he is so proud to bestow and which TV reporters are so eager to foist upon their viewers. This was pure, old-fashion political sycophancy at its very worst.

Someone recently said the most dangerous place in Washington was to stand between Kennedy and a TV camera but his toadyism is both shabby and shameful in its transparent attempt to please Donald Trump and to cash in on Trump’s inexplicable popularity with Louisiana voters.

Inexplicable because everything—and I mean everything—the man stands for goes against the interests of the most vocal of his supporters. All you have to do to verify that claim is to compare his record with his actions. Instead, his supporters choose to listen to his rants and to read his sophomoric tweets which stand in stark contrast to his official actions behind the scene:

  • Safe drinking water? Who needs it?
  • Consumer protection? Why?
  • The former head of the Bank of Cyprus, a leading conduit for Russian money laundering is now Secretary of Commerce so you do the math.
  • Medical care? Hmph.
  • Employee benefits like pensions and overtime pay? Nah.
  • Net neutrality? Don’t need it, don’t want it, can’t use it (besides, that was an Obama policy so, out it goes).
  • Tax reform? You bet—for the wealthy.
  • Protection of endangered wildlife? Hell, there must be a hundred species of animals out there. That’s way too many.
  • Banking regulations to avoid another recession like we had in 2008? Just signed off on the rollback of Dodd-Frank, thank you very much.
  • The head of EPA is less concerned about protecting the environment than in enriching himself with European vacation trips on your dime and installing $45,000 soundproof phone booths in his office and blaming his staff whenever he gets caught wasting taxpayer funds.

Nixon was a crook, Lyndon Johnson lied us into an unwinnable war that cost 58,000 American lives, Bill Clinton had a basketful of scandals, and George W. Bush lied to us about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but I daresay Trump is far and above the biggest crook—and the most ill-prepared to be president—who ever occupied the Oval Office. There will be those who will deny that to the death, but it doesn’t change the facts.

And before you call me a wild-eyed liberal or something worse, keep this in mind: I was a Republican longer than a lot of you have been alive. I was a Republican when we could caucus in a telephone booth. But I didn’t leave the party, it left me. It took me a long time, but I finally saw what the Republican Party stood for and it wasn’t for any of the things that I learned from the Bible—things like charity, understanding, kindness, compassion, taking care of the sick, and feeding the hungry. You know, Christian virtues the evangelicals claim to espouse but who instead turn around and condone, encourage even, the most unchristian behavior imaginable. We call that hypocrisy where I come from.

At various times, Trump has:

  • Told us not to the trust the FBI;
  • Told us not to trust the Justice Department;
  • Told us not to trust the free press, and
  • Told us not to trust the courts.

These are the only institutions that can hold him accountable and he is trying to undermine every single one of them. If that doesn’t worry you, it damn well should.

So, in order to appease Trump and his followers in Louisiana, and apparently in order to solidify his support for a gubernatorial run in 2019, Kennedy slobbers all over himself in calling for Mueller to end his investigation “because it distracts in time, energy and taxpayer money.”

And Trump’s governance by tweets is not a distraction? His constant reversals of positions are not a waste of time, energy and taxpayer money?

Trump reminds me of an editorial cartoon I spotted this week:

  • He doesn’t believe the intelligence agencies;
  • He doesn’t support the rule of law;
  • He doesn’t support the special counsel;
  • He doesn’t support the mission of federal regulators;
  • He doesn’t support the right to demonstrate peaceably;
  • He has no concern about the integrity of fair elections;
  • He doesn’t care about the “huddled masses.”

Hell no. He’s a true patriot.

And Kennedy is sucking up to him in grand fashion.

Kennedy, you cited a laundry list of things that need to be done. I seem to remember that when you ran for the senate, there were things you were going to work for. But now it seems you are beginning to “distract in time, energy and taxpayer money” by running for governor when you should be doing your job—kind of like the way you criticized Bobby Jindal for running for president when he should have been tending to his job as governor. You sounded so sensible when you criticized Bobby for not doing his job and yet…

But just for the sake of argument, let’s compare the distraction that you claim the Mueller investigation of one year—one year, John—has become with past INVESTIGATIONS investigations and the presidents. We’ll start with the granddaddy of ‘em all:

  • Watergate (Nixon): 4 years, the resignation of a president and more than 20 indictments/pleas;
  • Michael Deaver perjury charges (Reagan): A shade over three years and one indictment;
  • Iran-Contra (Reagan): six and one-half years and 14 indictments/pleas;
  • Lyn Nofziger improper lobbying (Reagan): About 16 months, two indictments/pleas;
  • Samuel Pierce influence peddling (H.W. Bush): Almost nine years (and he was only in office for four): 18 indictments/pleas;
  • Whitewater/Paula Jones/Monica Lewinski (Clinton): Seven years, 15 indictments/pleas, impeachment of a president (acquitted);
  • Mike Espy gifts (Clinton): Seven years, 13 indictments/pleas;
  • Henry Cisneros perjury charges (Clinton): Nine years, 8 indictments/pleas;
  • Alexis Herman influence-peddling (Clinton): Two years, one indictment/plea;
  • Valerie Plame leaks (George W. Bush): Three years, one indictment/plea;
  • Russia (Trump): One year, John, just ONE YEAR, and more indictments/pleas already than you can count.

In case you weren’t counting, John, that’s four separate investigations costing $80 million during Clinton’s administration. I’m not saying they weren’t warranted because they were. But I don’t recall anyone ever saying those investigations should’ve been shut down.

So, John, why don’t you read up on Will Rogers, do a few more hominy and grits folksy quotes and leave the real work to those charged with doing the job?

Or maybe come up with another ad about drinking weed killer for your gubernatorial campaign.

 

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Senate | 13 Comments »

Cedric Richmond only member of Louisiana’s congressional delegation wise enough to vote against Dodd-Frank rollback

May 24, 2018 by tomaswell

I’m no economist and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I make no claims to be gifted in predicting the future. After all, I smugly opined on the day that Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency that he would crash and burn within six weeks. He may yet crash and burn but it’s taken a tad longer.

But it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see a repeat of the 2008 financial collapse and when it happens, don’t forget to thank Louisiana’s two senators and four of our six representatives. I mean, Stevie Wonder can see the idiocy of the actions of Congress in rolling back the reforms put in place by the DODD-FRANK rules following the disastrous Great Recession brought on by the recklessness of the banking industry.

The HOUSE voted 258-159 on Tuesday to allow banks with up to $250 billion in assets (that’s roughly eight times the size of Louisiana’s $30 billion budget and our legislators can’t even get a grasp on that) to avoid supervision from the Fed and STRESS TESTS. Under Dodd-Frank, the tougher rules applied to banks with at least $50 billion in assets.

Louisiana House members who voted in favor were Garrett Graves, Mike Johnson, Ralph Abraham, and Steve Scalise. Only Rep. Cedric Richmond voted against the measure while Paramilitary Macho-Man, the Cajun John Wayne, Clay Higgins took a powder and did not vote.

The measure, S-2155, had eased through the SENATE by a 67-31 vote back on March 14 and both Louisiana Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy voted in favor. Kennedy, who loves to preach about revenue and spending, should know better: he was Louisiana State Treasurer for eight years, from 2000 to 2008. You’d think he might have learned something during that time. Guess not. But what could you expect from someone who thought he had “reduced paperwork for small businesses by 150 percent” during his tenure as Secretary of Revenue?

You can be sure that the banking industry lobbied Congress hard for this. Their lobbyists may well have outnumbered—and outspent—the NRA and perhaps even big oil and big pharma in its efforts to show members the right thing for baseball, apple pie and the American Way. Here is a blurb from the Arkansas Banking Association to its members on Monday, the day before the House vote, for example:

ABA (the American Banking Association) is asking all bankers to make a final grassroots push by calling their representatives and urging them to vote “yes” on S. 2155. ABA and all 52 state bankers’ associations sent letters to the House on Friday urging passage of S. 2155. Take action now.

Here is a copy of the ABA LETTER to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the letter sent by the state ASSOCIATIONS, including the Louisiana Bankers’ Association.

It’s almost as if the bankers, their lobbyists and their pawns in Congress have had their collective memories erased.

Remember “TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL” or costs of somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 TRILLION (with a “T”) to the U.S. economy the last time banks got a little carried away with their subprime mortgages and insane investments of OPM (other people’s money)? Remember how the runaway train wreck of 2008 darned-near destroyed the economy not just of this country, but the entire GLOBAL ECONOMY?

Remember how Congress had to bail out the incredibly reckless banks and how not a single person ever did jail time for the manner in which greed and more greed took over for sound fiscal judgment?

Remember the run-up to the 2008 collapse? Deregulation? Warren Buffet’s referring to derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction” (was anyone listening)? Enron? Worldcom? Countrywide? Merrill Lynch? Wells Fargo’s manipulation of customers’ accounts? Lincoln Savings & Loan? Pacific Gas and Electric? Arthur Anderson? Lehman Brothers? Bear Stearns? AIG? Washington Mutual?

Did anyone learn a damned thing? Judging from the rollback of Dodd-Frank, the answer to that critical question must be a resounding “NO.”

And lest you feel a pang of sympathy for those poor, over-regulated banks, consider this: PROFITS for AMERICAN BANKS during the first quarter of 2018 increased by 28 percent, shattering the prior record set just three quarters earlier.

The “blockbuster earnings report” was attributed to tax cuts implemented by the Trump administration, which should give you a pretty good idea about just who the tax bill was designed to help in the first place.

And here’s something that will give you a warm fuzzy: American banks are sitting on almost $2 trillion of capital that will help them survive the next recession—whether you get through the next downturn or not. That theory that excess capital would be plowed back into the economy just didn’t seem to pan out. Wall Street is counting on the Dodd-Frank deregulation allowing banks to return as much of that surplus cash as $53 billion back to SHAREHOLDERS.

Reinvestment? More jobs? Stimulating the economy? Fuggedaboutit.

It’s all about the shareholders.

Always has been, always will be.

And you can bet the shareholders won’t fuggedaboutit when it comes to chipping into the campaign coffers of those members of Congress who had the good sense to vote to lift the unreasonable burden of overregulation off the poor, struggling banking industry.

But what the hell? I’m not an economist. I’m just one of those purveyors of all that fake news.

 

Posted in Business, Campaign Contributions, Congress, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, House, Senate, Media, Politicians, Public Records, Revenue | 8 Comments »

Jindal WSJ op-eds reminiscent of kid who keeps pestering mom for candy in the grocery store: he just won’t shut up

May 21, 2018 by tomaswell

Even though no one appears to have taken notice of the fact, Bobby Jindal just won’t go away.

He’s like the little boy at the store trying to get his mom to buy him a candy bar but Mom has this way of ignoring him as only a long-suffering mother can.

You know the kid I’m talking about: “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Maaaaaaaa-maaaa.”

Meanwhile, Mom just keeps on pushing the cart down the aisles as she shops for flour, sugar, roast, milk, etc.

Yeah, Bobby Jindal’s just like that.

While the rest of us go about our every day lives trying to make the mortgage payment, pay the utility bills and worry about how we’re going to pay for college tuition (thanks largely to Jindal’s having stripped state colleges of about 75 percent of their state funding), Bobby just keeps plugging along with his Wall Street Journal op-eds as if any of Louisiana’s beleaguered citizens were still listening.

It wasn’t enough that Jindal embarrassed the state with his Republican RESPONSE to President Obama’s State of the Union Address back in 2009 or that he humiliated himself with that numbingly silly ANNOUNCEMENT TO HIS CHILDREN in 2015 that he was running for President that he had the poor judgment to not only videotape but to upload to YouTube.

Nor is it sufficient that a few months back he found it necessary to summon his wife from their house to help him determine how the garbage can should be situated for curbside pickup. He had walked around the container several times in an attempt to figure out how it worked but finally gave up and called on Supriya’s engineering expertise, albeit hers is a chemical engineering degree.

And apparently, Bobby has yet to learn my email address because I still receive his missives, though they are appearing with less frequency than those daily updates about how well he was running in Iowa as he labored in vain to break through that 1 magical percent barrier in a crowded Republican field. Of course, if you went by his daily bulletins, you’d never have known he wasn’t a lock for the nomination.

So now, private citizen Jindal is churning out the op-eds for the WSJ. What remains a mystery is how the editors of a publication of such a stellar reputation as the WSJ could ever deem his opinions as being remotely relevant to the national debate. Bobby Jindal is history after having bankrupted this state for eight years.

Think back: When did he ever not have to institute midyear budget cuts? The answer? Never. Every one of his years was marked by draconian cuts to health care and higher education, a trend that has, despite the lessons that should have been learned, been carried forward by shallow-minded Republicans in the Legislature and a Democratic governor who has failed miserably in getting specifics of his message across to the voters.

On Sunday, I received this email from Jindal:

Dear Friend (“Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Maaaaaaaa-maaaa.”),

I recently wrote an oped (sic) for the Wall Street Journal discussing President Trump’s path to reelection.  Those who write-off his chances should be careful. Increasing extremism on the democrat (sic) side combined with the strong potential of a third-party candidate is just the scenario President Trump needs heading into 2020.

I hope you will take time to read the full article.

Best,

Bobby (“Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Maaaaaaaa-maaaa.”)

Kasich Could Be Trump’s Best Hope
An independent candidacy could split voters who dislike the Democrats but can’t abide the president.

The Wall Street Journal
Bobby Jindal

“…But the base isn’t enough to win, and Mr. Trump so far shows little sign of picking up new supporters. Thus, a challenger is not sufficient—Mr. Trump needs a candidate who siphons off not only Republican Never-Trumpers, but moderates who might otherwise vote for the Democrat. Fortunately for him, the Democrats are making themselves increasingly unattractive to those moderates.”

The email ended with a link to click on to read the rest of the article.

He was a lousy governor and an even lousier candidate for President. I had no reason to believe he’d be any better as a political pundit, so I didn’t bother.

“Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Maaaaaaaa-maaaa.”

Posted in Politics | 7 Comments »

20 LDOE unclassified employees rake in huge pay increases totaling $534,600 over 5 years, an average of $26,730 each

May 17, 2018 by tomaswell

In the 2013-2014 school year, Louisiana ranked 34th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia with average teacher earnings of $49,067 per year.

Since then, Louisiana is the only state in either the top 10 or bottom 10 to experience a wage decrease. As a result, the state has tumbled 10 places to 44th (that’s 8th WORST) for teacher salaries.

But since 2013, you’ll be happy to know that 20 unclassified employees in the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), including the husband of a state senator and State Democratic Chair, who were already making in excess of $100,000 received raises averaging 27.2 percent, according to figures obtained by LouisianaVoice from the Louisiana Office of Civil Service.

Altogether, the 20 unclassified (that’s political appointees, for those who might not know) employees combined for raises totaling $534,600, an average increase of $26,730 each from 2013 to 2018.

Three others who were not employed in 2013 were on the payroll in 2015 had combined pay increases of $49,500, or 18.3 percent.

In all, the 23 individuals had their pay increased from a low of 10 percent for Manager Lisa French and Assistant Superintendent Kunjan Narechania to 61.5 percent for Liaison Officer Dana Talley and a staggering 85.7 percent for Director Shan Davis.

Even Dana Peterson, a Recovery School District (RSD) Administrator and the husband of State Democratic Party Chairperson Sen. Karen Carter Peterson of New Orleans, is along for the ride, having seen his salary increased from $125,000 per year in 2013 to $148,500 in 2018, a bump of 18.8 percent.

The RSD is scheduled to revert back to the control of the Orleans Parish School Board by July but LDOE still lists 94 UNCLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES unclassified employees assigned to various positions with the RSD.

There were seven employees (Davis, Jules Burk, Tiffany Delcour, Jessica Baghian, Bridget Devlin, Rebecca Kockler, and Dana Talley) who received increases of 36.6 percent or more from 2013 to 2018 while three more received raises of 29.4 percent (Laura Hawkins), 29.5 percent (Jan Sibley), and 29.8 percent (Jennifer Conway).

Two employees, Director Jill Slack and Executive Counsel Joan Hunt, might be somewhat offended at all that money flying around since they received raises of only 2 percent and 3.8 percent during that same five-year period. Their raises, however, were more in line with what state employees receive in the way of pay raises—when they get them. Raises for state classified (civil service) employees have been static for nearly a decade now.

For a look at the spreadsheet for LDOE unclassified employees’ pay raises, go HERE. (The salaries for 2013 and 2015 are given as bi-weekly salaries. To get the annual pay, multiply those numbers by 26 (the number of times state employees are paid each year).

 

Posted in Education, Ethics, Finances, Jobs, Public Records, RSD, Senate, Transparency | 11 Comments »

Don’t listen to what they say; listen to what they don’t say

May 17, 2018 by tomaswell

The key is to listen to what they don’t say.

Whenever an elected official or bureaucrat starts talking, especially if he’s boasting of some accomplishment, it’s important that you tune out what he says and listen closely to what’s not being said. Always.

A case in point is information fed to the public by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) this week.

What they said: LDOE issued a glowing news release announcing that the Louisiana high school graduation rate for the class of 2017 was a record 78.1 percent, skyrocketing from the 77 percent of 2016.

What they didn’t say: The Louisiana high school graduation rate is 8th lowest in the nation, higher than Mississippi (4th lowest) and New Mexico (the lowest) but lower than Florida (9th lowest), Alabama (3rd highest), Arkansas (25th highest), Tennessee (9th highest), Oklahoma (21st lowest), and West Virginia (18th highest).

What they said: Students from low-income families graduated at a rate of 72.6 percent, in increase from 71.5 percent in 2016.

What they didn’t say: Speaking of low-income, the median salary for school teachers in Louisiana was 5th lowest in the country—$48,307, compared to the national median salary of $57,949. Mississippi is at rock bottom with a medial salary of $30,070 for all workers.

What Superintendent of Education John White said: “Not only is the state making progress but historically disadvantaged populations are also making progress at a rate that is greater than the state average.”

What he didn’t say: The per pupil expenditure of $12,153 is right in the middle of the pack at 25th highest, which can be attributed in large part to the flow of funding into charter and virtual schools and to top-heavy salaries in the Claiborne Building (headquarters for the Department of Education) where there are 37 political appointees knocking down an average of $127,000 per year.

What he said: “We know our graduation rate needs to be better.”

What he didn’t say: “At least we’re not Mississippi.”

 

Posted in BESE, Education, Finances, Media, Politicians, Public Records | 1 Comment »

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