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LouisianaVoice fall fundraiser heading into final week

October 5, 2017 by tomaswell

Corruption, abuse of public office, scams, Ponzi schemes, politicians shamelessly bought by campaign funds, lobbyists who drown out the voices of the people, salary inequities, fraud, Wall Street manipulation of our very lives, adverse audits of public agencies we trust with our funds and resources, poor quality of living, poor national rankings, education as a political football, State Police corruption, questionable activities at the Office of State Fire Marshal, lawsuits, adoption fraud that’s frighteningly close to human trafficking, profiteering at the expense of taxpayers…

These are samples of the stories LouisianaVoice covers on a daily basis—of advertisements or subscription fees.

That’s why we hold two fundraisers a year—to solicit your generous support of what we do.

It doesn’t take much, but it does require financial resources to keep our work going. Just so you know, I do not take a salary from LouisianaVoice. Zero.

The contributions you make are plowed right back into the work of investigating public corruption, fraud, and ethics violations.

We’re heading into our final week of our fall fundraiser. Time is running out for our final push of 2017.

Please do what you can. All contributions are appreciated. Click on the yellow “DONATE” icon at the right and give by credit card or mail your check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70726

And thanks.

Tom Aswell, publisher

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

State Treasurer’s race boils down to See, Speak, Hear and Know no truth; candidates take Louisiana voters for fools

October 5, 2017 by tomaswell

If you really want to know what’s wrong with our political system and the people we elect to office, it can be summed up in the current race for State Treasurer.

Here are the Duties of that office:

According to Article IV, Section 9 of the Louisiana Constitution, the treasurer is head of the Department of the Treasury and “shall be responsible for the custody, investment and disbursement of the public funds of the state.” The Treasury Department website outlines the treasurer’s duties:

  • receive and safely keep all the monies of this state, not expressly required by law to be received and kept by some other person;
  • disburse the public money upon warrants drawn upon him according to law, and not otherwise;
  • keep a true, just, and comprehensive account of all public money received and disbursed, in books to be kept for that purpose, in which he shall state from whom monies have been received, and on what account; and to whom and on what account disbursed;
  • keep a true and just account of each head of appropriations made by law, and the disbursements under them;
  • give information in writing to either house of the Legislature when required, upon any subject connected with the Treasury, or touching any duty of his office;
  • perform all other duties required of him by law.
  • advise the State Bond Commission, the Governor, the Legislature and other public officials with respect to the issuance of bonds and all other related matters;
  • organize and administer, within the office of the State Treasurer a state debt management section

https://www.treasury.state.la.us/Home%20Pages/TreasurerDuties.aspx

Nowhere in al that does it even once say or even imply that the job has once scintilla to do with:

  • standing with President Trump to create new jobs or to cut wasteful spending, as former Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis would have us believe in her TV ads;
  • fighting to make drainage and infrastructure top priorities in the state budget, as State Sen. Neil Riser insists in his TV ads;
  • having the guts to say “No! No to bigger government, no to wasteful spending and to raising your taxes,” as former State Rep. John Schroder proclaims in his TV ads, or
  • stopping cuts to education, healthcare and wasteful government spending, as the TV ads of Derrick Edwards insist.

http://www.wafb.com/story/36425632/la-treasurer-candidates-launch-tv-ads-analyst-calls-them-flimsy-on-duties-of-office

So, why do they insist on campaigning on issues in no way related to the actual duties of the position they are seeking?

For the same reason candidates for Baton Rouge mayor (former Mayor Kip Holden and State Sen. Bodie White, who ran unsuccessfully for the job, come to mind) consistently campaign every four years on improving schools and reducing the number of school dropouts when the mayor’s office has zilch to do with the school board:

They consider the average voter to be unsophisticated, ignorant fools who don’t know any better. Or they’re so stupid they don’t know any better themselves. Those are only two choices.

Period.

Their campaign ads clearly illustrate the complete and total disdain the treasury candidates have for Louisiana voters. They obviously think they can throw up (ahem) fake news and pseudo issues that leave voters in complete darkness about each candidate’s relative qualifications to hold the job.

And by so doing, they send a loud message that neither is qualified for—or deserving of—the job.

When John Kennedy, who had previously served as Secretary of Revenue, an appointive position, ran for treasurer in 1995, he ran a somewhat relevant ad that said, “When I was Secretary of the Department of Revenue, I reduced paperwork for small businesses by 150 percent.”

That ad carried a message that actually resonated with small business owners drowning in paperwork and which at least sounded germane to the office of state treasurer—never mind that it was physically impossible to reduce anything by 150 percent. Once you reduce something by 100 percent, you’re at zero.

All of this rant about the four candidates for treasurer and the lame campaign rhetoric of candidates for Baton Rouge mayor—and just about any other political office you can name—just illustrates to what lengths politicians will go to cloud the real issues and to shy away from discussing matters they can actually address when in office.

How many times have you heard a candidate for U.S. Representative or U.S. Senate implore you to send him to Washington so that he can “make a difference”?

It’s disingenuous at best, fraud at worst.

So, on Oct. 14, be sure to go to the polls and cast your vote for one of the four frauds running for treasurer.

It’s the Louisiana way.

Posted in Congress, Education, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, House, Senate, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Revenue, Taxes, Waste | 6 Comments »

Help LouisianaVoice continue to expose corruption: Please donate as our fall fund drive moves into its final days

October 3, 2017 by tomaswell

Folks, please don’t forget that LouisianaVoice is presently conducting its fall fund drive and I desperately need your help in keeping the flow of fresh, thorough, investigative stories coming. I’m about to embark on a field I’ve never covered before but which has been brought to my attention: human trafficking of babies for adoption.

Adoption scams are about the worst type of criminal activity out there, with the exception of the trafficking of young girls for prostitution—another area not previously covered by LouisianaVoice but certainly not immune from our examination.

It doesn’t matter if you have ever adopted a child, know an adopted child, or ever intend to adopt. If there are people profiting from illegal activity in this field, you should want it exposed.

We live in a sick society, as evidenced by the proliferation of drugs, high crime rates, extreme poverty even as the 1 percent get wealthier, violence such as the Las Vegas shootings, lax enforcement of criminal violations by those with money and influence by authorities from the U.S. attorney general to the Louisiana attorney general and to local district attorneys, and, of course, human trafficking.

Not to be overly boastful, but LouisianaVoice the only medium that is working to expose wrongdoing on a consistent basis. Others do so sporadically but as soon as the next hot news story comes along, it’s forgotten, pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.

Please help me to continue doing this. Click on the yellow “DONATE” button to the right of this post and give what you can by credit card or send a check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

As always, thanks for your support.

Tom Aswell, publisher

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

Louisiana and other southern states continue low rankings while politicians ignore causes in favor of hot button issues

October 3, 2017 by tomaswell

With 478.7 diagnoses per 100,000 population, Louisiana has the third highest cancer rate in the nation.

The data, released by 24/7 Wall St., a digital business news website which publishes more than 30 news articles per day, only last week released a report showing Louisiana as the fourth-worst education state in the nation.

The news doesn’t get any better with the state ranking 4th highest in the rate of cancer deaths per 100,000 population (186.1), 10th highest in lung cancer deaths per 100,000 population (68.8) and 7th highest in the number of adults who currently smoke (21.9 percent).

The only hint of good news, if one could call it that, was the breast cancer diagnoses per 100,000, (19th lowest) which was the most common incidence of cancer for the nation and for all but Louisiana and Mississippi.

Only Delaware (488.1) and Kentucky (513.7) had higher cancer rates than Louisiana. Delaware had the 5th highest rate of breast cancer diagnoses (136.9).

But Kentucky, in addition to having the highest overall cancer rate, also was highest in cancer deaths per 100,000 (199.1), lung cancer deaths per 100,000 (91.4) and in the number of adults who smoke (25.9 percent). Kentucky is also the 5th worst educated state

West Virginia, rated as the worst-educated state last week, had the 13th highest overall cancer rate, but was second in cancer death rate, lung cancer death rate and in the number of adult smokers.

And then there’s Mississippi, coming in last week as the second-worst educated state, right behind West Virginia with the 12th highest overall cancer rate, 3rd highest cancer death rate, and 4th highest in both lung cancer death rate and in the number of adult smokers.

Arkansas, the 3rd worst educated state, while only 17th in overall cancer rate, was 6th in overall cancer death rate, 3rd in both lung cancer death rate and the number of adult smokers.

In addition to having high cancer rates, low educational attainment, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia are also among the poorest states in the nation.

Throw in Alabama, with its low educational ranking and high poverty figures (its cancer rates were somewhat better than its neighboring states) and there definitely appears to be a correlation between smoking-related cancer rates and poverty.

And there’s another statistic that goes right along with that: incarceration rates.

Louisiana, of course, leads the civilized world with 1,420 prisoners per 100,000 population but right behind Louisiana are Oklahoma (1,300), Mississippi (1,270), Alabama (1,230) Georgia (1,220), Texas (1,130) Arizona (1,090) and Arkansas (1,010).

Isn’t it funny how the same states keep popping up in these surveys?

Yet the politicians in each of these states—not to mention congress and whoever may happen to be president—continue to ignore the real problems while appeasing campaign contributors and pandering to the latest hot button political issue, be it immigration, crime, drugs, border walls, a minimum age for strippers, kneeling during the national anthem, the latest quick fix for education, open carry legislation, or ramping up the next non-winnable war.

Yet they somehow manage to overlook the root cause of most of our problems: poverty.

Where there’s poverty, there’s crime; where there’s poverty, there’s unemployment; where there’s poverty, there’s low educational achievement; where there’s poverty, there’re major health issues.

Do you think it mere coincidence that Hammond and Monroe rank as the 4th and 6th most dangerous cities, respectively, in America, according to 24/7 Wall Street? Or that Monroe (11th) and Hammond (32nd) are among the poorest cities in the U.S., according to the same source?

Is anyone embarrassed by the fact that also ranked among the poorest cities in the nation were Shreveport-Bossier City (9th), Lake Charles (28th), Houma-Thibodaux (25th) and Lafayette (36th)?

And where it can be found anywhere, it seems that political corruption thrives best in an environment of abject poverty. Where there is an atmosphere of poverty and desperation, where people care only about where their next meal is coming from and little else, corruption is free to breed.

Nursing homes prosper when their beds are full of old people. Nursing home operators contribute generously to political campaigns and bills to encourage home care for the elderly stall.

Sheriffs and private prisons rake in the dollars that prison labor brings through the door. Businesses get cheap prison labor via work release, plus a $2,000 tax credit for each prisoner they work. Consequently, the war on drugs continues so we can keep our prisons and jails filled to maximum capacity. It’s all about the penalties for drug use, not the treatment for the problem. That doesn’t fill the jails.

Rather than address the core problem of crime, we arm our police to the teeth with military weapons meant for war and mass destruction.

Yes, I am keenly aware of what happened in Las Vegas, but did all that military firepower accessible to law enforcement there prevent the attack?

Might tighter gun control laws governing the purchase of the kind of weapons the killer had at his disposal have made it a little more difficult for him to have executed 59 people with such ease? We’ll never know. Lawmakers refuse to address the issue because they quake in the presence of the NRA and they grovel for NRA campaign cash. They’re the NRA’s bitches.

Arming the 22,000 concert goers, would, in all likelihood, have produced far more casualties but that’s the approach of lawmakers and the NRA: more guns for everyone!

“Poverty? What poverty? Where? We don’t need to increase the minimum wage. Anyone can feed a family on $7.75 an hour.”

Only trouble is, that’s being said by those who don’t have to and never had to.

 

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments »

Lots of finger-pointing, throwing Edmonson under the bus by two State Troopers demoted for Oct. ’16 San Diego trip

October 2, 2017 by tomaswell

The fallout from last October’s cross-country drive to San Diego via the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Las Vegas in a state police vehicle has resulted in the demotion of two state troopers who took part in the drive.

Lt. Rodney Hyatt was demoted to sergeant, and Capt. Derrell Williams was bumped down to lieutenant. Both troopers received corresponding reductions in pay along with their demotions.

Both men have the option of appealing their respective disciplinary actions.

But they didn’t go down without a fight and without throwing former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, who was forced into retirement over the trip that also included a dozen other state police personnel, under the bus. It all comes down to “who do you believe?”

And Hyatt, so sure was he that he was blameless in the circuitous route taken by the four, recently applied for promotion to captain despite his pending demotion.

Moreover, Williams was cited for receiving a semi-nude photograph from a female friend on his state police email account via his state-issue cell phone and for transmitting a suggestive photo of himself to that same female friend on his state email account.

Both men fired off lengthy letters defending their actions to the State Police Internal Affairs Section that Williams once headed. In Hyatt’s case, his letter was 12 pages in length while Williams’s letter was 10 pages.

Hyatt, in particular, attempted to shift the blame for driving the state vehicle (which was assigned to then-Assistant Superintendent Charles Dupuy, for overstating his overtime, for staying in expensive hotels, and for visiting Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam along the way, to Edmonson.

Williams, for his part, said simply that “None of the (other) officers in the state vehicle were in my chain of command,” and that upon his return to Baton Rouge, Edmonson “signed off on my state credit card expenditures showing the prices and places where we stayed.”

The disciplinary letters from State Police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves to Hyatt and Williams were each 10 pages in length but the letter to Hyatt appeared to pack the most punch and its entire 10 pages were summed up in a single sentence:

“Your response merely attempts to shift responsibility for your actions to others,” Reeves said.

Still, it’s difficult to imagine that the four would have gone off on a sightseeing trip in a state vehicle without Edmonson’s knowledge and blessing.

Reeves also said that Hyatt not only submitted padded time sheets for hours not worked but that he forwarded copies of his time sheet to Troopers Thurman Miller and Alexandr Nezgodinsky, who also made the trip in the state vehicle, “to show them how to claim their time for the travel and training.”

Hyatt, in his letter said he was initially asked by Edmonson if he wanted to attend the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference that was held in conjunction with the State and Provincial Police Planning Officers Section (SPPPOS) meeting. Hyatt said he told Edmonson he did wish to attend both conferences at which point Edmonson said, “If you go, you have to drive.” He said Edmonson then said, “Take your wife and have a good time.”

“I have never taken my wife in my entire 20-year career to any work-related conference,” Hyatt said. “Had Edmonson not told me to, I would not have brought her. However, being a paramilitary organization, I took his order to mean that I am going to the conferences in San Diego, California with my wife, and we were to have a good time and drive there. Additionally, I followed his order because I did not want to violate Louisiana State Police Policy and Procedure, which states that I shall obey and execute all lawful orders of a superior officer.”

Moreover, Hyatt said it was Edmonson who suggested that the four troopers and Hyatt’s wife take the “northern route” because there was “nothing but desert along I-10.” That was the route that included the side trips to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Vegas.

Edmonson was quoted earlier this year when news of the trip first became public that he did not sign off on the side trip but Williams backed Hyatt’s version of events by saying he had “no doubt” that Edmonson knew the whereabouts of the four “at all times” during the trip.

On telling part of Hyatt’s letter as well as Reeves’s letter of demotion to Williams was the issue of text messages and emails on state cell phones.

LouisianaVoice requested copies of all such messages and photos, particularly those between the four troopers in the state vehicle and Edmonson months ago but was told by State Police Legal Affairs that no such messages existed.

Yet Hyatt, in his 12-page response alluded to emails, text messages and photographs sent by Hyatt’s wife to Edmonson throughout the trip.

And Reeves, in his letter, cited the sexually explicit photo sent to Williams’s state email account by a female friend and received on his cell phone and Williams’s photo of him straddling a cactus that he texted to that same lady friend.

Because the disciplinary letters and the responses are so lengthy, it has been decided that rather than try to relate what they said, it would be better to simply publish the links to the respective documents.

So here is the disciplinary letter to RODNEY HYATT, along with his response.

And here is the disciplinary letter to DERRELL WILLIAMS, followed by his response.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, State Police | 14 Comments »

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