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If you still rationalize anything and everything Trump does or if you have high blood pressure, DO NOT read this post!

December 2, 2018 by tomaswell

A few years back I had the good fortune to sit on the reviewing stand at a Texas A&M football game. It was Thanksgiving Day and the opponent was the University of Texas Longhorns. I was on the reviewing stand with good friend Jack Thigpen, one of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ever had the good fortune to know. If Jack has ever said a disparaging word about anyone, I’ve never heard it.

We were seated in that special area because our host was a major donor to Texas A&M. Another personable and genuine person on that same reviewing stand that day as the cadets marched into the stadium was George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States.

I had Jack photograph me shaking hands with President Bush—several times. I kept coming back and the last time, he recognized me, laughed and said, “How many times are you going to do this?”

“As many times as you’ll let me,” I replied. He laughed again—and posed for the photo.

When I heard on Saturday morning that Bush had passed away, I couldn’t help but reflect back and marvel at the contrast between the political landscape of his time and today.

The comparison isn’t pleasant.

One can set down on just about any day of the Trump presidency and find plenty at which to be both appalled and disgusted.

There is his appointment of WILBUR ROSS as Secretary of Commerce. Ross, you may or may not know, was head of the Bank of Cyprus before joining the Trump disassembly of democracy. The primary function of the Bank of Cyprus, of course, was to LAUNDER DIRTY MONEY for the Russian Mafia.

There’s Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, about whom you can by clicking HERE.

And a guy named STEVEN HOFFENBERG, a $475 million Ponzi scheme operator who the late Ruston weekly newspaper publisher John Hays exposed several years ago. It would stand as the largest Ponzi scheme ever until Bernie Madoff came along. The resulting investigation by Hays resulted in a federal prison sentence for Hoffenberg, who surfaced a quarter-century later as a major fundraiser for Herr Trump.

But that wasn’t the end of the Hoffenberg SAGA. It seems he was a running buddy of Wall Street prodigy Jeffrey Epstein who worked for six years for Bear Stearns before launching his own financial investing firm in 1982.

Prosecutors tried to offer Hoffenberg a deal if he would give them information about Epstein and his part in the scam but he refused only to later file a $1 billion lawsuit accusing Epstein of running the scam through Hoffenberg’s company, Towers Financial Corp.

So, what’s the big deal about Epstein? There are lots of scammers on Wall Street. Madoff himself called Wall Street the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all—and he may have been correct.

And how does Epstein tie into the Trump administration?

Well, before I go any further, all this story circles back to a member of Trump’s cabinet and if you can, in any manner, rationalize anything Trump or his subordinates do, don’t read any further.

If you have a propensity to overlook Trump’s transgressions with a shrug and the (very) lame “well he’s doing what he said he’d do,” don’t read any further.

If you call yourself a Christian but are willing to look the other way while Trump appoints, crooks, thieves, scam artists, money launderers, and enablers of sexual perversion, don’t read any further.

And most of all, if you have high blood pressure and are easily angered when people play you for a fool, don’t read any further.

But if you have a conscience, please read what comes next.

If you are a Trump devotee (and even if you’re not), you’ve most likely heard the preposterous claim that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophilia ring run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor. Commonly known as Pizzagate among the wild-eyed zealots of the Alex Jones ilk, the absurd rumor was proven to be just that—a groundless rumor.

But there was a child sex ring before the Pizzagate story lit up the Internet.

It was back in 2005 and would include a lot of bigly—very bigly—names. Names like Epstein, Bill (not Hillary) Clinton, Prince Andrew, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and….Donald Trump.

Epstein would be charged with sex trafficking. Many of his victims, most likely in the hundreds, were juveniles, some as young as 13. Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts, said in a lawsuit filed against Epstein that she was 15 and working at MAR-a-LAGO when she was recruited by Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

One story had both Epstein and Trump engaging in sex with a girl they knew to be only 13.

The Miami Herald, in a SICKENING STORY published last Wednesday, said a 53-page indictment could have sent Epstein to federal prison for the remainder of his life.

Until, that is, U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta stepped in and negotiated what has been called the “deal of a lifetime” for Epstein. A non-prosecution agreement was reached whereby the ongoing FBI investigation into whether there were more victims would be terminated. He would serve 13 months—13 months—in the county jail (where he would be housed in a special wing and allowed to work part-time in his office). And contrary to federal law requiring that victims of his crimes be notified of the agreement, the deal was sealed and kept from them.

And Acosta?

Well, he’s now Trump’s SECRETARY OF LABOR and until recently, was on the short list to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

And if you think I’m being overly hard on Acosta and by association, Trump, if you think that I like to cite the so-called “fake news” in making my points, you may wish to check out this story by…. FOX NEWS.

Such are the daily stories coming out of the Trump White House. There’s seldom a day that something sleazy doesn’t ooze from under the Oval Office door. The man is simply unable to display even an inkling of class and he has surrounded himself with those who are but mirrors of his own shortcomings.

And then there was GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH who was the very personification of class.

The LETTER he left for the man who defeated him for reelection in 1992, Bill Clinton, reveals the type person he was.

Volunteering for the military just before Pearl Harbor, he was shot down over Chichi Jima in the Pacific in 1944. He is the last combat veteran to hold the office of President. Trump, on the other hand claimed a stone bruise on his heel as a way to avoid the draft but when later pressed as to which heel, he couldn’t remember.

Bush and wife BARBARA were married an incredible 73 years. She died in April, he seven months later.

Writer Matthew Walther, writing for THE WEEK, said Bush was not a “movement” conservative, a trait that is lost on state politicians like Cameron Henry, Taylor Barras and Conrad (buy stock, then vote for state contract with that company) Appel. Bush’s willingness go back on his “read my lips” pledge and raise taxes “for the good of the country” likely cost him the election to Clinton. Walther pointed out that Bush had “little patience for the antics of Second Amendment absolutists and other loud-mouthed enthusiastic types in the conservative caucus.

“He spoke the old-fashioned language of solidarity with ease, though he had little patience for the empty self-aggrandizement that is expected of modern politicians.”

And he didn’t mind crossing the aisle and working with Democrats when the country stood to benefit from it. Gen. COLIN POWELL said Bush believed that politics shouldn’t be nasty.

My God, Trump, are you listening? (No, of course not.)

“Bush was the last important politician to embody all the old WASP virtues—decency, stoicism, self-denial, gentle wit, skepticism, and courtesy,” Walther said.

And would Trump skydive on his 80th and 90th birthdays?

Posted in Politics | 14 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

November 20, 2018 by tomaswell

“I pledge to continue diligent enforcement of our Open Meetings Law.”

—Attorney General Jeff Landry, in an effort to grab a share of the spotlight following a judge’s ruling that the Vermilion Parish School Board acted illegally in having a teacher arrested and ejected before approving a $30,000 pay raise for the board’s superintendent. (Landry is mandated to defend state agencies, boards and commissions in litigation over open meetings and public records and is prohibited by that same constitution from interfering in local matters unless requested to do so by the local district attorney.)

 

 

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

Judge slaps down Vermilion School Board arrest of teacher at board meeting; Jeff Landry swoops in for share of credit

November 20, 2018 by tomaswell

A state district court last week knocked down action taken by the Vermilion Parish School Board for violations of the state’s Open Meetings Law. In what must surely be a first, I find myself in agreement with Attorney General Jeff Landry on the whole affair.

Suffice it to say, however, that Landry waited until there was a judicial ruling to take his courageous stand, a ruling 10 months in the making, while LouisianaVoice took a similar position on the removal of a teacher from a board meeting immediately.

For that matter, why the hell did it take 15th Judicial District Court Judge David Smith 10 months to issue a ruling on a matter that is supposed to be fast-tracked: the issue of public meetings of governmental bodies? To take 10 months to decide what was obviously a violation of state law is somewhat ludicrous.

Be that as it may, Smith not only ruled the school board violated the Open Meetings Law by having a teacher, Deyshia Hargrave, a Kaplan middle school English teacher, arrested and removed from the meeting because she questioned the board action of awarding Superintendent Jerome Puyau a $30,000 raise, from $110,190 to $140,188, while teachers have gone years without a pay increase.

Puyau, in an interview with a Lafayette television station, said, “By the time the teacher stood up in the audience to the time she was at the door, it was 53 seconds. During that 53 seconds, she was asked to sit multiple times, the gavel struck multiple times.”

Yes, she was asked to sit and yes, the gavel was struck multiple times in a desperate effort to keep Hargrave from further publicly embarrassing the board and Puyau. When the raise for Puyau came up on the agenda, Hargrave, the parish’s 2015-16 Teacher of the Year, attempted to ask how the board could award Puyau a raise “when you’re basically taking from the teachers.”

Board President ANTHONY FONTANA, an Abbeville attorney who should have known better, rapped his gavel while informing Hargrave she was not on the agenda and the item being discussed was the superintendent’s contract.

Hargrave was quick to point out that she was addressing the very issue the board was considering, his gavel-rapping notwithstanding. “This directly speaks to what you’re voting on,” Hargrave said as a city marshal moved in to slap handcuffs on her and lead her from the meeting.

To view the complete video, click HERE.

The video prompted a flood of outrage from throughout the country. News organizations, from the Charlotte Observer, to The Washington Post, to The New York Times, to US News & World Report, to NPR, to NBC, to the La Crosse (Wisc.) Tribune, and even the Baton Rouge Tiger Droppings picked up on the school board’s action.

Meanwhile, Fontana, referring to Hargrave as “the poor little lady,” said, “If a teacher has the authority to send a student, who is acting up and she can’t control, out of the classroom to the principal’s office, under our policy we have the same rules.” Apparently, Fontana believed he could treat teachers as children and that getting arrested is the equivalent to being sent to the principal’s office.

And perhaps Fontana, after 25 years on the board, should have retired before deciding he was the final authority on open meetings and freedom of speech First Amendment rights.

And while Judge Smith took his time in issuing his ruling, he did take it to its ultimate conclusion in negating the school board’s approval of Puyau’s contract and his $30,000 raise—because the action was taken in what Smith said was a meeting held in violation of the Open Meetings Law.

Puyau, obviously feeling he had been grievously wronged by the ruling (never mind the manner in which the board treated Hargrave—one of its teachers, no less), told Lafayette TV station KATC reporter Chris Wetly that he would appeal the decision.

“It has ruined myself and my family,” he sniffed. “It has broken me personally. It has changed me as a person…to understand that politics is ugly and they (whoever “they” is) will do anything they can to get rid of me as Superintendent.”

Hey, Puyau, trying getting arrested, being handcuffed, and led out a public meeting—for simply exercising your First Amendment right of free speech. Then you can talk about your life being “ruined” and your life “changed.”

And of course, there is Landry, always ready and willing to pick the low-hanging fruit. Here’s the headline from his news release on Monday:

Vermilion Ruling A Victory for Teachers, Public Declares Jeff Landry
AG Landry Pledges Continued Enforcement of Open Meetings Law 

“I applaud Judge Smith for remedying this injustice,” Landry said of the ruling, adding that Hargrave and her fellow teachers, “who have not received a pay increase in many years despite growing class sizes, should have absolutely been heard.”

Of course, that was an easy call to make for Landry, ever the politician on the prowl for votes wherever and whenever he can find them. “And I pledge to continue diligent enforcement of our Open Meetings Law,” he said.

That’s a curious “pledge” for him to make. The Louisiana Constitution prohibits his intervention in parish affairs unless specifically requested to do so by the local district attorney. And as attorney general, he represents state boards, commissions, and agencies, meaning he is mandated to protect their interest, not ours. That means that in litigation over open meetings or public records, rather than enforcing the law, he defends state boards, commissions and agencies.

As ample illustration of that important distinction, observant readers will note that while LouisianaVoice WEIGHED IN on the controversy immediately, Landry, once a ruling had been made, had an opportunity to characteristically grab the spotlight with his news release. Prior to Judge Smith’s ruling, however, he had absolutely zero to say about the matter.

Nothing.

Nil.

Zilch.

So much for “diligent enforcement.”

Posted in Attorney General, Boards, Corruption, Courts, Education, Ethics, Judges, Media, Transparency, TV News | 3 Comments »

Four Louisiana metro areas among worst 38 poverty areas in the nation but the question is, where are leaders who care?

November 20, 2018 by tomaswell

H24/7 WALL STREET, that independent service that publishes a multitude of surveys each day, has published a list of 38 metropolitan areas in the U.S. which have the highest poverty rates.

Four Louisiana metro areas made the list, ranging from 10th to 37th poorest.

New Orleans was not on the list, most likely because the affluent parishes of Jefferson and St. Tammany are included in the greater metropolitan area of the Crescent City.

The rankings are based on latest data released in September by the U.S. Census Bureau, the 24/7 Wall Street survey noted. And while poverty is on a general decline in the U.S. with 13.4 percent of Americans living below the poverty line, all four of the Louisiana metropolitan areas included in the list had poverty rates that exceeded 20 percent, as did 38 of the 382 metro areas reviewed in the U.S.

Seventeen of those 38 areas were in Texas and Georgia (5 metro areas each), Louisiana (4) and West Virginia (3). Texas had three cities ranked as the worst areas with McAllen, Texas ranked worst in the nation with a poverty rate of 30 percent, an unemployment rate in the highest 10 percent at 7.4 percent and a median household income of $37,106, also among the worst 10 percent.

All four Louisiana metropolitan areas—Monroe, Shreveport-Bossier, Hammond, and Alexandria—had unemployment rates that ranked among the highest 25 percent and three—Monroe, Shreveport-Bossier, and Alexandria—had median household incomes ranked among the worst 10 percent.

Monroe was the 10th poorest metro area in the nation, followed by Shreveport-Bossier (11th), Hammond (30th), and Alexandria (37th).

While the national unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in 2017, Monroe had a jobless rate of 5.3 percent, followed by Shreveport-Bossier (5.5 percent) and Alexandria and Hammond (5.7 percent).

To review the complete list, go HERE.

Louisiana followed the trend of having a high poverty rate that coincides with low educational attainment and a large share of available jobs in low-paying sectors.

It’s a familiar story for the state that seems to have become locked into an unbreakable pattern of low positives and high negatives. Elected officials, meanwhile, continue to ignore the factors that keep its citizens among the lowest paid, unhealthiest, and worst educated in the nation.

And whenever efforts are exerted toward reversing the trend, there are always certain self-serving or bought-and-paid-for legislators standing by to block those efforts and lobbyists with different agendas who will wine and dine the lawmakers.

Even more disheartening, we continue to re-elect them.

Whoever said we get the government we deserve…..nailed it.

Posted in Corruption, Economy, Education, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Media | Leave a Comment »

Trump ‘raked’ over his asinine raking solution to California fires; discourages any thought of return to stand up comedy

November 19, 2018 by tomaswell

For about 15 years, I fancied myself a stand-up comic. I guess it dates back to my senior year at Ruston High School. I had Miss Ruth Johnson for Algebra II. Her class was first hour and I was always tardy.

One day, fed up with me strolling in late each morning, she stopped me at the door. “You stand up here and tell us why you’re late….and it better be good,” she demanded. She wasn’t smiling. Before she started driving, she walked about a mile right past my house on her way to school—after feeding and milking a cow—so I couldn’t use the excuse of having to walk less than a quarter-mile.

So, I did my first stand-up bit, making the story up as I went along.

“Well, Miss Ruth (everyone called her Miss Ruth), this morning about 2 o’clock, we heard a noise out in the chicken house. My granddad thought it was the possum that had been killing our chickens. So, he grabbed his shotgun and stuck his magnetic flashlight onto the barrel. He was standing in the entrance to the chicken house waving the gun around, shining the light, looking for the possum. He had his long johns on because it was cold last night. But it wasn’t that cold, so he had the bottoms open. Our old blue tick hound came up behind him with his cold nose and, Miss Ruth, we been cleanin’ chickens since 2 this morning.”

If Miss Ruth had allowed it, I’d have gotten a standing ovation. The entire classroom exploded. She tried not to laugh and fussed at me over the laughter of the class. As of that moment, I had the bug. Many years later, I took a dare and went onstage at a Baton Rouge comedy club on open mic night. I was never so nervous in my life but the emcee, Spud McConnell asked me to come back. And I did. I became the house emcee at the old Funny Bone and stayed around for 15 years—probably about 12 years too long.

Funny Bone owner Mike Rogers tried to break it to me nicely, informing me that after 15 years, everyone in Baton Rouge had probably heard my joke. He brought me back for a 25th anniversary show, but that was it. So, I went back to my first love: writing. Some (perhaps many) think I’m still a joke, but that’s okay. This country was founded on the principle that everyone should have his say and if readers disagree with me, that’s their right to say so.

Having said that, there will be some who will suggest that I give up comedy and writing.

But for sheer audacity, no one can top Donald Trump.

Just look at some of his utterances:

  • “Putin told me he didn’t do it.”
  • “North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat.”
  • “I’m going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it.”
  • “I’ve been treated very unfairly by this judge. Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage. I’m building a wall, OK? I’m building a wall.”
  • “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.”
  • “By the way, I have great respect for China. I have many Chinese friends. They live in my buildings all over the place.”
  • “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
  • “A certificate of live birth is not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination as a birth certificate.”
  • “They (The New York Times) don’t know how to write good.”
  • “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me—consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
  • “Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.” (Ranks right up there with “I’m a very stable genius.”)
  • “Nobody respects women more than me.”
  • “What’s that?” (his response to a question about his insulting a Gold Star family.)
  • “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
  • “Lock her up! Lock her up!” (cheerleading his rabid followers in response to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account. Now you have to wonder if he is going to demand that IVANKA be locked up. Oops.)

Granted, some of those remarks weren’t jokes and they certainly weren’t very funny. Whenever he opens his mouth, something downright crude and/or stupid usually spills out. Sometimes, his remarks are outright lies, but all are typical Trump.

But for sheer stupidity, idiocy, lunacy, and absurdity, yesterday’s ADVICE on how California could reduce the risk of forest fires pretty much tops them all:

“You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important,” Trump told reporters. “You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story.  I was with the president of Finland and he called it a forest nation, and they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don’t have any problem. And when they do, it’s a very small problem.”

If I ever entertained any thought of returning to the stage, Donald Trump has laid those thoughts to rest. No one could possibly be funnier than our Clown in Chief, especially when he’s trying to be serious.

Well, while others (especially FINNS) are laughing their backsides off at the solution offered by our Forester/Scientist/Raker-in-Chief, I for one, am making a run to Lowe’s and Home Depot to buy up all their rakes. I have to do my civic duty. There’s a lot of wooded area between my house and the Amite River that needs raking. Of course, that’s the same river that overflowed back in August 2016, flooding half of Livingston Parish and destroying hundreds of homes, mine included. So, I guess I’d better rake the river bottom, too, to prevent future flooding.

John Sachs, a Ruston High classmate (who missed my comedic debut 57 years ago) said Trump needs to rake Central Park lest it catch fire and burn down Trump Tower.

There was a serious story in the fake news WASHINGTON POST that explains the real reason forest fires are a rare event in Finland—and it’s got nothing to do with raking.

Meanwhile, President Big Mac is taking a lot of heat (no pun intended) for letting his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird brain:

DAILY NEWS

GRAB A RAKE

SIGN OF THE TIME (in Helsinki)

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »

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