Louisiana Voice

In trying to illustrate why members of Congress become so inaccessible once they’re inside the Beltway, it would be to belabor the obvious to say that they appear to ignore the voters back home…

…even as they seem hyper-attentive when the special interests whisper in their ears.

It is certainly no exaggeration to say the playing field has definitely been tilted by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision…

…but by coming together as one voice, that imbalance can be overcome and we can be heard.

My first thought was a spine chilling “He’s baaaaaack!”

Like Freddie Kruger in about a dozen Nightmare on Elm Street movies, Bobby Jindal just won’t go away, I thought

Jindal, the Nightmare of Louisiana, supposedly sent out an email blast announcing his candidacy for the Public Service Commission.

Except it was apparently one of those fake news stories Donald Trump keeps tweeting about.

Jindal, the personification of political disaster, appeared to have made his announcement via email Monday (July 10) at 5:09 p.m. that he will be a candidate for the PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION (PSC) District 2 seat formerly held by Scott Angelle, who was APPOINTED by Donald Trump to head up the Federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement which regulates offshore drilling.

Here’s a copy of the original email received by LouisianaVoice:

From: Bobby Jindal [mailto:info@americanxt.org]
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2017 4:45 PM
To:
Subject: I’m in

I wanted to make sure your heard—I’m running to represent you on the Public Service Commission!

I’m running because I want to do everything possible to help create jobs and get Louisianians (sic) back to work.

We need leaders fighting for Louisiana’s small businesses. That’s how we’ll get more and better jobs for our state. It’s not going to happen through more government regulations or spending.

I’m a small businessman myself, and I know how important it is to grow our economy. It’s going to take rolling up my sleeves and being willing to get to work, and that’s exactly what I will do.

It’s going to be incredibly important to have your help getting the word about this important race out to your friends and neighbors. I’m asking for your help.

Only it wasn’t really from Jindal.

Someone named Tim Saler followed what we thought was an email from Jindal with a correction at 6:18 p.m. “Due to a technical error, an email from Baton Rouge orthopaedic surgeon Craig Greene was sent to recipients with an incorrect sender’s name. Craig’s campaign is renting multiple lists, and unfortunately one of these lists was inadvertently labeled with a previous sender’s name.”

Imagine our disappointment, even though he did sound a lot like Jindal—and about 10,000 other politicians. For example, he wants us to believe the PSC creates jobs; he’s against regulations of such things as price gouging, illegal dumping of toxic waste, unsafe gas lines and motor carriers. As an orthopaedic surgeon, he somehow considers himself a “small business,” and of course he wants to roll up his sleeves (for a campaign photo-op, no doubt).

One of our sharp-eyed readers informed us that it was worth noting that Greene may be using Jindal’s America Next super PAC and that SALER “is a Jindal-Teepell teammate.” Timmy put him on the ground to work races while he (Timmy) handled television and other media via his ONMESSAGE web page.

Saler is not listed as an Onmessage operative per se, but he was listed as one of Jindal’s 2016 presidential KEY STAFFERS. Our source said the word is that Jindal and Teepell are grooming Greene to run for governor.

Gov. John Bel Edwards appointed former State Rep. DAMON J. BALDONE to complete Angelle’s unexpired term until a special election can be held. While Edwards has yet to call the election, it will most likely be Oct. 14. Baldone, a Houma attorney, has indicated he will seek the office on a permanent basis.

PSC DISTRICT 2 is comprised of the parishes of Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary, St. Martin, Lafayette, West Baton Rouge Pointe Coupee, West and East Feliciana, and parts of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, and Iberville.

Despite the correction sent out by Saler, the very idea of Jindal as a candidate for PSC got me to reminiscing about his eight years of misrule as Louisiana’s absentee governor.

You do remember, Bobby Jindal, right? He’s the guy who thought he would make a good presidential candidate. Remember that hilarious video of him announcing his intentions to his kids? Remember their rousing indifference? Much like the voters’ reactions in Iowa. He would have probably received the same accolades in New Hampshire had his campaign made it that far.

Remember, too, his relegation to the Republican Party’s kiddie table in the debates? That was classic.

Of course, once Donald Trump was the official Republican nominee, Jindal gave his whorehearted wholehearted endorsement and Trump responded in kind with a puzzled “Bobby who?”

And you must remember Jindal’s landmark LSU Hospital deal that LouisianaVoice said all along was illegal because of the contract with the new operator of the hospitals in Monroe and Shreveport contained 50 BLANK PAGES. Remember how we speculated that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would reject the plan?

Of course, Bobby didn’t really care because he knew he would be long gone by the time the chickens came home to roost.

And come home they did, demanding that the state repay $190 million CMS said the state owed on the fraudulent deal.

State Rep. John Bel Edwards was against the hospital deal from the get-go and as governor, it fell to him to resolve the problem Bobby created.

And while Edwards has precious little credit, he has managed to talk CMS down from $190 million to $5 million through extended NEGOTIATIONS.

Thanks, Bobby.

And of course, Bobby’s first experiment with privatization was with the Office of Risk Management, a privatization deal that was supposed to save the state tens of millions of dollars.

Except it hasn’t. In fact, the company that was paid to take it over, came back within just a few months asking that its contract be increased by 10 percent, which it was—and then the contract was sold to another company without the prior approval of the Division of Administration as was required by the original transfer. Now, LouisianaVoice is hearing rumors of internal complaining because the private operator isn’t pulling its weight and the few remaining state employees are having to carry the bulk of the workload.

Thanks, Bobby.

Remember how Bobby gave us eight consecutive years of budgetary shortfalls followed by draconian cuts to services and higher education? Remember how the cost of tuition at Louisiana colleges and universities skyrocketed under eight years of Jindal?

Thanks, Bobby.

And remember how Bobby squelched that lawsuit against those 97 oil companies that had inflicted so much carnage on the state’s coastal marshes?

Next time a category 4 or 5 hurricane slams into Morgan City, New Orleans or anywhere else along what’s left of our coastline, be sure to thank Bobby for there being no barrier islands to slow the progress of that hurricane.

And of course, there’s that disastrous BP Deepwater-Horizon-oil-spill-of-2010 that killed 11 men and spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil over an area estimated as high as 68,000 square miles.

Remember Bobby’s solution? Build berms! Against the advice of all the expert engineers, Bobby insisted he was a genius and could mitigate the damage by spending $220 million to construct sand berms to stem the flow of oil to Louisiana’s shore.

Well, guess what? The berms, along with the bulldozers and cranes brought in for the project were washed away in a matter of hours. Gone. Much like his credibility.

The Oil Spill Commission staff described Jindal’s SAND PILE as “underwhelmingly effective and overwhelmingly expensive.”

Much like Jindal’s eight years in office.

Thanks, Bobby.

Still, after all that, the image of Jindal sitting on the PSC wouldn’t go away. Utility rate increases? Why not? It’s private enterprise; they have a right to make a profit. Transportation costs? Go ahead, fellas, charge whatever the market will bear and don’t worry about regulation.

But best of all was my visual of a showdown between Jindal and sitting PSC member Foster Campbell, everyone’s favorite populist.

Jindal’s staccato rhetoric, empty of any real substance, versus Campbell’s bombastic oratory. It would be like a debate between Tweety Bird and Foghorn Leghorn:

“Slow, Ah say, slow down, boy. You sound like a 33^1/3 rpm record bein’ played on 78. (That boy talks like he has to be somewhere—like th’ restroom.)”

(Yes, I know I’m supposed to be on a break in order to move back into my home that was flooded last year. But this exercise in frustration was just too mind-numbing to let pass without writing about it.):

It’s official: Today (Wednesday, July 5, 2017) is the longest day of my life.

Not because I hung blinds as I prepare to move back into my home that was flooded 11 months ago. I did hang blinds and I’m already on record as claiming that task as the one I hated more than any other.

Now I have to amend that list since hanging blinds has dropped to second place on my dreaded to-do list.

You see, I called my cable company today to arrange for my cable and internet to be reconnected. It was the task from hell.

Because of lawsuit concerns, I won’t mention the name of my cable company but its initials are Cox Communications.

To set the stage for this obstacle course of one’s mental well-being, I should point out that for the past 11 months, my wife and I have been living at my youngest daughter’s house, a mere seven miles from our home. But last August 13, it may as well have been 500 miles away for our chances of making it to her home which, thankfully, remained high and dry.

But I digress. While residing at her home, I kept my cable account open in order to maintain my current email address. When I took that action, I was told it would cost $10 per month. But it soon began creeping upward. My last bill was for $18. Of course, there was no explanation for the furtive rate hike. They just do it because they can.

Still, because I had kept my account active, you might think it would be easy to call and ask that I be reconnected at my former residence.

Oh, for the love of everything holy, think again.

For openers, I got an account representative who apparently was somewhere in Calcutta or Kyrgyzstan or Kiribati or Djibouti or Sri Lanka which automatically meant she would be required to repeat everything at least three times in order for me to pretend to comprehend what she was saying.

At one point she informed me (I think) that despite my having been a customer of uninterrupted tenure for 22 years at the same address and another 11 months (with no lapse) at my daughter’s, I would now be a “new customer.” Okay, no big deal there. They can call me a new customer or a warthog as long as I get my service.

When I informed her I wanted just the basic cable with no land line telephone in my bundle this time, she said she had something called a “twenty-plus” package that offered 20 cables: Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC and a host of other stations/channels I’d never heard of which I assume are local access channels where local folks get to pick guitars or clip toenails, or read poetry, and call it local entertainment. The worst part? No CNN or ESPN. I like CNN and ESPN but they’re not part of this paltry package.

Eighty-two bucks, folks. That’s the price she quoted for the “Twenty-plus” package and I never did learn what the “plus” was, though she did tell me it included high-speed internet.

Now about that high-speed internet. That’s horse hockey and Cox knows it. They don’t offer certified, bona-fide, verified high-speed internet to consumers anywhere in this state. I worked for the State of Louisiana for 20 years and when I left, state computers had true high-speed internet. Residential consumers did not and do not have access to high-speed internet. The difference is like night (ADSL, i.e. residential subscribers) and day (SDSL, or commercial subscribers).

When I squawked about the pathetic “Twenty-Plus” channel options, she said the next best package was 220 channels, also with high-speed internet for $89 which also included the land line telephone as part of the bundle. I said I didn’t want the land line. She said tough noogies, it comes with the package.

Now let’s review:

Twenty channels, including four networks (but no CNN or ESPN) and a host of crappy local channels for $82 per month;

Two hundred twenty channels, including about 210 channels I will never watch—and a phone line I don’t need—all for $89 per month.

From 20 to 220 channels. Nothing in between. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Just one quantum leap from 20 to 220

“How long is this $89 per month price good for?” I asked because I’m on to their rate manipulation tricks.

“One year,” she said.

I understood that without the need of her repeating herself. One year and then they jack the price up to whatever they want because we’re a captive audience. I know, I know, there are others, like AT&T. You see, I lied just a tad about the 22 years of uninterrupted service because once, when I got sick and tired of Cox’s rate hikes, I switched to AT&T but found it so much worse than Cox that I switched back the same week to the lesser of the two evils.

Like I said, captive audience.

“I’m going to put you on hold for just a minute,” she said (at least I think that’s what she said).

Twenty minutes later, she returned to tell me she was going to transfer me to the installation department.

“Uh…” I managed to say and then she was gone and I got to listen to elevator music for the next 40 minutes with only a brief interruption when she returned to the line to apologize for the wait and then she was gone again. And I couldn’t name a single one of the dippy songs. I was forced to listen to an unidentifiable playlist for the full hour I was on hold (her 20 and installation’s 40).

The installation lady was stateside, at least. But she went through all kinds of offers and when I attempted to tell her I didn’t want any of that, she interrupted me to say, “I am required to make these offers. If you don’t let me do it, you won’t get your service.”

Well, that was pretty brutal. But I wanted my cable so I let her finish. She then informed me there would be a credit check conducted on me and that there “might be” an additional deposit, depending the results of the credit check. This for a customer of 22 years (oh, sorry. I forgot that I was now a “new” customer). Then she started asking all types of personal information, including my social security number and—for future verification purposes—the name of my first pet.

Are you kidding me? My first pet? We were so poor when I was a kid that my first pet was a sagebrush and I didn’t bother to name it because I didn’t want to become emotionally attached. So, as an alternative question, she asked where my mother and father met. Hell, I wasn’t there. I suppose it was in Ruston since that’s where I was born. But I was their second child. They probably met four or five years before I came along and they could’ve met in Zwolle or Paincourtville or Shongaloo, for all I know.

Then (are you ready for this?) she said she was transferring me to the installation verification team who would set up the appointment for my installation.

That’s right. Another 15 minutes on hold as I desperately tried to identify a song title from the “You’re-on hold-and-you-have-to-listen-to-this-incredibly-pitiable-musical-interlude.

So, it took me a mere 90 minutes, of which only 10 minutes at most was spent in actual conversation with a live human being, to reconnect my cable and internet and to be forced to take a couple hundred channels I don’t want or need and to accept a land line telephone I didn’t want from a customer service representative I couldn’t understand who works for a company I don’t particularly like.

I’m nearly 74 years old and 90 minutes to me at this stage of my life are too precious to waste in such a maddening manner.

I could’ve been using that time to do something far more enjoyable, like hanging blinds.