Feeds:
Posts
Comments

LV April fundraiser in final three days: Please contribute

April 27, 2018 by tomaswell

Only three more days of my nagging you for contributions to keep LouisianaVoice afloat. Our April fundraiser ends on Monday so you don’t have much time left to contribute to no-holds-barred investigative journalism on the home front.

While I occasionally venture out of my comfort zone and into the national political arena, I generally limit my writing to issues in Louisiana that are overlooked by a mainstream media that has been gutted by newsroom cutbacks.

It was LouisianaVoice that broke the very first Mike Edmonson story—the one about the attempt by State Sen. Neil Riser to hand him an additional $100,000 annually in retirement. Then, as events unfolded, LouisianaVoice gave scores of stories about Edmonson’s lax management style that led to low morale and corruption at State Police. We were first to announce that Edmonson was stepping down from his post.

LouisianaVoice also broke the story about Bobby Jindal’s attempt to torpedo Murphy Painter, former head of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control with trumped up federal criminal charges, charges on which Painter was acquitted with the state being forced to pay some $700,000 in Painter’s attorney fees.

From there, LouisianaVoice began following Painter’s successor, hand-picked legislator Troy Hebert. Story after story described abuses of authority by Hebert.

LouisianaVoice broke the story of the Office of Group Benefits which saw its healthy surplus slashed to peanuts by Jindal’s underhanded maneuvers designed to help him bridge his disastrous yearly budget deficits.

LouisianaVoice also broke the story of how Jindal and a handful of north Louisiana legislators swung a sweetheart deal for Vantage Health in its purchase of a state building in downtown Monroe for pennies on the dollar. Of course, several Jindal cohorts now work for Vantage.

LouisianaVoice broke stories about Superintendent of Education John White and his policies to undermine public education in Louisiana—including licensing a private school in Ruston that had no physical facilities or teachers.

Not every story is a blockbuster, of course. Some are more mundane than others. But the fact is, LouisianaVoice has worked diligently for eight years now to expose waste, corruption, and unethical practices in Louisiana government. We are currently looking at operations in the Louisiana Department of Health and have already found several areas of questionable and unethical activity.

We can’t do all this without your help—moral and financial. We have to keep the lights on and that includes chasing down countless leads (I get about 200 emails per day), paying for auto fuel and upkeep, paying for public records and even fighting off the occasional lawsuit designed to shut down LouisianaVoice.

Please help by clicking on the yellow DONATE button in the right-hand column just above my blurb on my Bobby Jindal book. That will allow you to give by credit card. If you’d rather not do it that way, you may mail your contribution to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

And please know your contribution, no matter how large or small, is deeply appreciated.

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

Got a subpoena and don’t want to go to court? Get yourself elected to the legislature and ignore the judge’s invitation

April 27, 2018 by tomaswell

To some readers, this will come under the heading of extremely old news.

To others, it will be a revelation well worth the time to read if for no other reason than to remind us how those in positions to do so tend to take care of their own.

I’m talking about House Bill 1351 of the 2004 legislative session—14 years ago.

It was what insiders to the legislative process sometimes refer to as a snake because it is sneaked into the process as an apparently innocuous piece of legislation. In reality, however, it is a self-serving bill that does nothing to benefit the general population but which serves the purposes of only a small minority, a mere fraction of the population: those in control of the system.

Signed into law by Gov. Kathleen Blanco after passing both chambers unanimously (with five absences—four in the House and one in the Senate), and authored as HB 1351 by then Rep. Taylor Townsend, the bill gave sweeping powers to legislators and staff members to literally snub their collective noses at the authority of state courts.

Should you ever be subpoenaed as a witness or a defendant in a civil or criminal matter, you had best be in court clad in the proper attire, with a respectful attitude and at the appointed time lest you bring the wrath of the presiding judge down upon your spinning head. Try to ignore that subpoena or otherwise buck the system and you’re likely to be shown your new quarters in a local holding cell and with a special new nom de plume, courtesy of the occupants already there: “Fresh Meat.”

Unless you serve in the legislature or are employed by same.

In strict legalese, Act 873, which is formally referred to as R.S (for Revised Statute) 13:4163, is an “Ex parte motion for legislative continuance or extension of time, legislators or employees engaged in legislative or constitutional convention activities.”

In plain English, it’s a doctor’s excuse to skip class for extended periods of time.

With a not from appropriate authority, i.e. the clerk of the House or secretary of the Senate, a legislator or a legislative staff member, when subpoenaed for a court proceeding, may thumb his or her nose at the judge because the STATUTE gives them that authority over a court order.

It says so, right there in the second paragraph: “A member of the legislature and a legislative employee shall have peremptory grounds for continuance or extension of a criminal case, civil case, or administrative proceeding…The continuance or extension shall be sought by written motion specifically alleging these grounds.”

The statute also says the continuance (legal term for delay) is for the benefit of the legislator or legislative staff member “and may only be asserted or waived by a member or employee.” It even applies of the legislator is an attorney who enrolled as counsel of record in the court matter.

In other words, someone with important business before the court will just have to cool his heels while his attorney/legislator tends to more important matters, i.e. taking care of campaign contributors like oil and gas companies, nursing homes, pharmaceutical firms, banks and members of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by making sure they are not overburdened with silly requirements to pay their fair share of taxes.

And you surely wouldn’t want your legislator missing out on a fine supper at Sullivan’s or Ruth’s Chris, a gala crawfish boil or some other after-hours function because he was hung up in court representing some poor nobody in a criminal case or civil lawsuit.

Boy Howdy, talk about rank having its privilege.

This exemption even extends to legislative committees and/or subcommittees in addition to legislative sessions and constitutional conventions (the last one of those, by the way, was in 1974 but hey, why take chances?).

So next time you’re required to be in court as a plaintiff, defendant, legal counsel for either side, or a jury member, just be thankful you aren’t a legislator so heavily burdened with the state’s pressing business that you would have to decline the judge’s invitation to attend.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Corruption, Ethics, Exemptions, House, Senate, Judges, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Senate | 2 Comments »

Jennings vies for title of Most Beautiful while Jeff Davis 8 murders go unsolved, drug dealing flourishes; Chief leaves

April 26, 2018 by tomaswell

Jefferson Davis Parish and the City of Jennings have for years now been the unwanted focus of national attention because of unsolved murders of eight (at least, some say there are more) prostitutes from 2005 to 2008.

Those murders are said to have been the inspiration for the TV show TRUE DETECTIVE.

Although author ETHAN BROWN, in his book Murder in the Bayou, as well as numerous national media stories is about the eight women, some sources say the number of UNSOLVED MURDERS in the parish is higher, that the actual number is at least 13 and also includes four male victims.

And while the eight female victims who have drawn so much media scrutiny since discovery of Necole Guillory nearly a decade ago were known drug users, it’s not insignificant to note that Brown claims that each also was a police informant.

Yet, while ROLLING STONE magazine, DR. OZ and others continue to devote considerable ink and camera time to the mystery, Jennings rolls along planning for Louisiana’s Most Beautiful City competition while seemingly ignoring areas of blighted abandoned houses in the city and burgeoning drug trafficking in those abandoned homes despite repeated warnings from one of its citizens.

That citizen, Christopher Lehman, is a retired Navy veteran and a retired federal civil service employee who upon moving to Jennings, served as a community services coordinator for the Jennings Police Department but was fired after making too much noise about open narcotics transactions on his street.

His dismissal has not deterred him from photographing suspected drug deals from vehicles and abandoned houses on his street and hitting the mayor’s office with a barrage of recorded incidents he feels were also narcotics transactions.

In fact, Lehman has combined several binders of photographs, reports and other information that he turned over to the city authorities. His warnings were consistently ignored.

Lehman, it seems, knew what he was talking about. Jennings police recently arrested 10 people in a major HEROIN BUST.

The Jennings Police Department chief, Todd D’Albor, recently resigned to take a similar position as leader of the newly-formed New Iberia Police Department.

That city, of course, has its own set of problems with a sheriff under fire and having escaped conviction on federal criminal charges brought against him in connection with the mistreatment of prisoners in his jail, including the deaths of some prisoners in his custody.

The most notorious case was that of a 20-year-old black male who authorities claimed managed to obtain a gun and shoot himself in the chest—while his hands were cuffed behind him.

The sheriff’s office took over patrol of New Iberia several years ago when the police department was disbanded because of a lack of city revenue with which to fund the department. Only after residents voted approval of $500,000 to reinstate the department last year was the department resurrected.

The vote to bring back the New Iberia city police department may have been prompted in part by the city’s VIOLENT CRIME RATE which runs far ahead of the state and national averages.

It’s uncertain if the New Iberia mayor and city council examined an audit report of the City of Jennings which said that D’Albor, while heading the Jennings Police Department, used public property for his personal use, used police department personnel to run personal errands, and that he stored personal property at city facilities against city policy.

All that might cause the casual observer to question why one city with a chronic crime problem would hire a police chief from a city where eight—or 13—unsolved murders continue to pose serious questions as to what is being done to solve the murders as well as to curtail open drug deals on the streets of a city that aspires to the title of Most Beautiful.

Posted in Auditor, Corruption, Crime, Media, Politicians | 2 Comments »

State attorneys among those solicited on work emails to contribute to appeal court judge’s election campaign fund

April 25, 2018 by tomaswell

The powers that be in state and local government, i.e., agency and departmental heads, like to give the impression that personal activities on the job, particularly as they might involve office computers and personal email messages, are strictly verboten.

That’s not to say, of course, that while the lowly peons are held to this higher standard of professional excellence, supervisors don’t shop Amazon.com or book cruises or Disney vacations while at work.

But, hey! Everyone fudges on those restrictions. It’s the rare employee indeed who doesn’t sneak in a little self-time on state computers and telephones.

But the Hon. JIMBO STEPHENS, newly-elected judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeal, or at least Rayville attorney John Hoychick, Jr., acting on his behalf, has taken the practice to new heights with an email blast to a gaggle of attorneys seeking campaign contributions for Stephens.

Hoychick included in his email at least five attorneys working on the public dime, either for the City of Monroe, the University of Louisiana Monroe, or the gret stet of Looziana as well as no fewer than seven barristers in the employ of CenturyLink, the telecommunications company headquarter in Monroe.

Louisiana agencies some of the recipients work for are employed by include the Department of Social Services and the Department of Children and Family Services (where the rank and file workers are chronically short-staffed and overworked but not, apparently, the attorneys).

Stephens, who defeated 4th JDC Judge Sharon Marchman in last October’s ELECTION, apparently wishes to retire his campaign debts and Hoychick is not the least bit shy in calling on some 140 attorneys in his email blast to do just that.

And while it may be a breach of protocol to solicit contributions from them at their taxpayer-funded jobs, it nevertheless serves as a classic illustration of how judges tend to lean on attorneys who might at some time in the future appear before them to argue a case or two—and woe unto one who has not paid his dues (at least that seems to be the mindset).

A “Sponsor Couple” can buy in for a mere 500 bucks while those on a tighter budget can get by for $150 as a “Supporter Couple,” according to Hoychick’s email solicitation.

(I just hope Stephens’s fundraiser doesn’t cut into LouisianaVoice’s ongoing fundraiser.)

Curiously, the email (or at least the one forwarded to LouisianaVoice) doesn’t give a date, time, or location for the highly anticipated “kickoff event.” But not to worry: checks, “payable to Judge Jimbo Stephens Campaign Committee,” can be brought to the event (wherever) “or mailed to Judge Jimbo Stephens Campaign Committee.”

Surely, the State of Louisiana, ULM, the City of Monroe, or CenturyLink won’t mind if their staff attorneys take a little time to write a check to the good judge. After all, if there’s important legal work to be done, it can be pawned off on an overworked paralegal or legal secretary.

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Computers, Courts, Elections, Ethics, Judges, Politicians, State Agencies | 2 Comments »

LouisianaVoice April fundraiser ends soon: Please donate

April 23, 2018 by tomaswell

I feel like a televangelist hitting viewers up for love offerings in exchange for a parchment paper prayer rug or a vial of sand from the mountain where I’m planning to go to pray for you (honest, I heard a televangelist offer to send sand from a mountain he had yet to travel to).

But at least I’ve not sunk to the depths of one, a Rev. Silas Strut, who offered for sale on his radio show his “Christian weight loss plan,” a cassette tape (remember those?) called “Help Me, Jesus, the Devil wants Me Fat.” He also offered a tape called “Those Satanic Smurfs,” but nothing topped the special diet plan, though I’ve often wondered about what constitutes a satanic smurf.

Anyway, I hope I don’t come off like any of those guys when I hit you up for contributions to LouisianaVoice. But the truth is, we do need some semblance of cash flow to keep the lights on.

And since I don’t accept advertising or charge a subscription fee, that leaves the old honor system as our only option. It’s Sorta like when I coached that sandlot baseball team, the Ruston Ramblers. We never charged admission (none of the teams in our old North Central League did), but we did pass the hat at games to try and raise enough money to pay the umpires and to replace lost baseballs that opposing batters routinely knocked out of sight and the wooden Louisville Sluggers that some batters were certain to break because they never learned to hold the bat correctly.

So, if you haven’t contributed yet, please consider doing so by either clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this paragraph to pay by credit card or by sending a check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

I promise not to send you any parchment paper prayer cloths or cassette tapes about special diet plans or about smurfs—satanic or otherwise. And as much as I’d like to be able to do so, I won’t promise you your contribution will bring you a financial miracle—just a continuation of coverage of stories the mainstream media doesn’t cover.

And as they said in the old Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler commercials: Thank you for your support.

Tom Aswell

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »