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Flood victims getting the shaft with surcharge so water cos. may recover flood losses; PSC approval is insult to injury

June 14, 2017 by tomaswell

Baton Rouge television station WBRZ had a NEWS STORY that caught my eye on Monday night, a story that shot my blood pressure up a good 30 points.

Residents of the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, and Ascension will have a small surcharge attached to their water bill this month. It’s being called an “August 2016 Flood Recovery Surcharge” and it’s only a few cents—six cents per 1,000 gallons of water. The average residential water customer uses about 6,000 gallons per month.

But that’s hardly the point.

The various water companies claim the surcharge is for them to recover money lost because of executive orders that prohibited disconnects and late fees of utilities following last August’s flood. They say the order last for eight months and during that time they lost revenue.

The Baton Rouge Water Company says its losses come to nearly $820,000 and the (East Baton Rouge) Parish Water Company has lost almost $230,000. Ascension Water Company is out about $174,000. All three, along with French Settlement Water Company and Louisiana Water Company were also approved by the Louisiana Public Service Commission in March—UNANIMOUSLY—to recoup lost money.

Excuse me while I shed a tear and blow my nose.

Many of the tens of thousands of homeowners who were displaced by the flood did not have flood insurance because their homes were not considered to be in a flood zone. But commercial entities like water companies might be expected to carry some sort of insurance as a vanguard against unforeseen losses like the flood. After all, thousands of their customers were in flood zones and they knew it. It’s called contingency planning.

So, while we homeowners are being scolded for not purchasing the expensive flood insurance (somewhere in the ballpark of $2,500 per year for most), where are the questions from the PSC regarding insurance coverage for loss of revenue to the water companies?

So Ascension Water Company is out $174,000? Well, guess what. I’m out $127,000. That’s how much I had to borrow to restore my home that was paid for in full prior to the flood. Some had to borrow more, some less. I’m 73, so I’ll be only 103 when I get that sucker paid off. And I’ve been displaced now for 10 months, not eight. Where’s my fund recovery?

The surcharge, WBRZ tells us, became effective this month and is expected to continue for about 18 months. But wait. That could be extended by the PSC.

Doesn’t that invoke a warm fuzzy feeling?

While FEMA took a hike after a flurry of look busy and helpful activity which resulted in exactly nothing for most folks impacted by the flood, it looks like the water companies will be getting theirs. While the Shelter at Home program produced basically shoddy repair work, the water companies are going to be made whole. And while millions of dollars were wasted—again—on those gawd-awful FEMA trailers, people went without needed permanent assistance. But not the water companies. While dishonest contractors were busy ripping homeowners off, the water companies are doing the same, but in a much subtler way.

And they’re doing with the aiding and abetting of the Louisiana Public Service Commission which was created to protect consumers from unnecessarily high utility rates (see cable TV rates while you’re at it) and price gouging.

Listed here are contributions from various water companies to PSC members since 2011.

  • SCOTT ANGELLE:                       $2500;
  • FOSTER CAMPBELL:                   $7500;
  • ERIC SKRMETTA:                     $31,500;
  • LAMBERT C. BOSSIERE, III:        $6000.

TOTAL                                          $47,500

Just $47,500? That’s more than a third (34.7 percent) of what my mortgage is now. And that’s just since 2011. I didn’t have the stomach to go further back but I’ll bet there’s more. It appears that only Damon Baldone and Mike Francis failed to collect any campaign checks from this particular special interest. I’m not sure who they made angry, but good on them.

Posted in Politics | 10 Comments »

Harley Purvis ruminates about bee in bikini TV news story, Louisiana Legislature’s failures vs. costs to state taxpayers

June 13, 2017 by tomaswell

I found my old buddy Harley Purvis sitting in his usual spot: in the booth in the back in the corner in the dark at John Wayne’s Lip-Smackin’ Bar-B-Que House and Used Light Bulb Emporium in Watson, Louisiana.

But something was decidedly different. The President of the Greater Livingston Parish All-American Redneck Male Chauvinist, Spittin’, Belchin’, and Cussin’ Society and Literary Club (GLPAARMCSBCSLC) was looking at his cell phone and….smiling.

Harley never smiles.

I slid into the booth opposite him, saying nothing. Without looking up, he pushed his phone across the table at me. “You gotta see this,” he said. “You know how the folks in Baton Rouge used to call us ignorant rednecks out here in Livingston Parish? Well they can’t do that anymore ‘cause so many of ‘em have moved out here for our far superior schools. But if you want to see real country,” he said with a chuckle, “take a gander at this.”

I picked up his phone and saw he was logged onto a story about a couple in Kentucky who had run off the road and hit a utility pole, stirring up an angry hive of bees. For the young lady, clad only in a bikini, it was not a fun experience. But Harley wasn’t amused at their plight. The story had an INTERVIEW with a local resident who was interrupted from feeding and watering his chickens by the impact.

I told Harley it reminded me of the time when I attended my father’s funeral in Nashville. As we sat in the small funeral parlor, one of his step-grandsons began talking to me.

“Ah got to git mah waf’ sumpin’ fer our anneyversary an’ Ah don’ know whut to git ‘er,” he said in an almost incomprehensible Tennessee drawl. I noticed his chin was moving from side to side and in and out in an apparent effort to wrap his mouth around his words as he slurred them out. It was like some kind of caricature from the movie Deliverance.

“Why don’t you get her what I got my wife?” I asked, already feeling guilty for what I was doing.

“Whut’d yew git yer waf’?” I thought for a brief moment he’d dislocated his jaw.

“I got her a solar powered clothes dryer.”

“SO-ler pawered? Ah ain’t never hurd o’ Thet.”

“Well, we just call it a clothes line.”

“Snork, snork, ungh, snork. Thet’s a good ‘un. Snork, ungh, snork.” He was slinging snot all over the room in something akin to a laugh that I had never heard emanate from a human before—all as my father lay in an open casket only a few feet away.

“That’s funny,” said Harley, “but without a video, you can’t really compare it to the bee in the bikini description this guy gives us.”

He had a point, so I decided to change the subject.

“So, what’s your take on the legislature this week?” I knew the answer before I asked and he didn’t let me down.

His face instantly turned into a dark scowl. “Those idiots just took the Louisiana taxpayers for a cool $68,688 in the first three days of the special session and they didn’t do a cotton-pickin’ thing,” he said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Do the danged math. They get $159 per day. There’s 144 legislatures, which is why I refer to ‘em as gross ignorance. And they took a three-day recess as soon as John Bel called the special session. That’s 144 times $159 times three days, which is a $68,688 cost to the taxpayers and they never lifted a finger to address the budget.”

“But he wasn’t through with the lawmakers. “You can talk about deadheads on the state payroll but no one compares to the legislature,” he said. “They are paid a base salary of $16,800 per year, the $159 per diem and each members gets a $1500 monthly office allowance ($18,000 per year) $6,000 in unvouchered expenses, a state phone, and a state computer.

“Altogether, that comes to a cool $7.8 million per year in even-numbered years for the 85-day session and $7.25 million in odd-numbered years for the 60-day session. That’s an average of between $50,340 and $54,315 per year for a part-time job, depending on odd or even year salaries.

“And don’t forget they also get that per diem any time they come to Baton Rouge for committee meetings or for attending legislative-related seminars and conferences—with travel, hotel and meals also paid for by taxpayers. And they take an awful lot of trips to these conferences and seminars.

“And what do we get for our dime? A bunch of lame brains who can’t even elect a capable House speaker to lead them and a Senate president who is a Democrat of Republican, depending solely on which label will get him elected. They just wasted 60 days without coming up with a budget and when the guv calls a special session, they call a three-day recess—all while collecting their damned $159 per day. Maybe weed killer-drinkin’ John Kennedy was right. We do have a spending problem, but it’s not the spending of money on needed programs and infrastructure that bothers me. It’s the spending problem we have with too many contracts going to too many cronies and the spending problem we have when we pay legislators to sit on their backsides and pass meaningless recognitions of constituents, stupid resolutions that don’t carry the weight of law and other silly nonsense like after-hours parties and eating at Baton Rouge’s best restaurants—compliments of lobbyists and special interests—while giving short shrift to what we send ‘em to Baton Rouge for in the first place.

“I don’t want to see any more taxes imposed on the middle class of this state any more than the next guy. But for the life of me, I don’t see why we can’t ask the corporations to pull their share of the load instead of getting more and more tax breaks from the state in exchange for low-paying jobs—if they create new jobs at all. I have a friend who says if we give corporations a tax break, they will make more money and give more jobs to the citizens of the state. That sounds good in theory but we’ve got plenty of evidence that this trickle-down economics just doesn’t work. They make more money to give higher salaries to their CEOs and to help their boards of directors see big increases in their stock options. That’s all the trickle down you get.

“But these clowns let LABI pull their strings like some kind of wizard puppet master, which is exactly what that organization is—a giant puppet master pulling the strings of a bunch of brainless marionettes.”

He paused for a minute to catch his breath. “And I don’t give the governor a free pass, either. I told him right after he got elected that he oughta appoint retired executives to his cabinet posts at salaries of $1 per year. We have plenty of qualified people with the expertise to run a tight ship and I know there are those who would gladly do it on a voluntary basis. We have retired corporate CEOs, retired college presidents, and even retired rank and file people who have good, God-given common sense. But what did John Bel do? He told me. ‘I’ll think about it,’ and then promptly put people in place paying them more than Bobby Jindal was paying his people.

“And that ain’t all,” he said. “I have some figures on some other agencies and programs that I’ll be sharing with you in due time and I guarantee it’ll grill your cheese when you see the numbers.”

I’d gotten an earful so I excused myself and came home to write this while it was fresh on my mind.

Ol’ Harley’s always good for a quote or two.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Revenue | 1 Comment »

Unbelievable! Louisiana congressman wants to imprison teens up to 15 years if found guilty of sexting other teens

June 7, 2017 by tomaswell

As a state and nation, we’ve lost our minds.

As weary as I get of writing one negative post after another (believe me, I’d love to write something really upbeat sometime), here I am once again wringing my hands and wondering how we ever arrived at this point in our history.

We have a president who’d rather tweet about how great he is than to actually act as a public servant.

We have a U.S. Senator (John Kennedy) who expressed a preference for weed killer over Obamacare.

We have a congressman (the Cajun Barney Fife, 3rd District Rep. Clay Higgins) who is $140,000 behind on his child support payments but who wants to kill all “radical Islamics,” even though he neglects to specify who—or what—defines “radical.”

And now we have a congressman (4th District Rep. Mike Johnson) who wants to throw teenagers in federal prison for a minimum of 15 years because he feels he is an instrument of God.

This is the same Mike Johnson, by the way, who, as a member of the Louisiana Legislature, tried to push through his “Marriage and Conscience Act.” That bill died in committee so Bobby Jindal promptly issued an executive order to enforce the act, which upheld discrimination against gays. Gov. John Bel Edwards rescinded that order last year.

Introduced by Johnson, the “Protection Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017,” would punish not only adults found guilty of sexting explicit photographs to minors, but also would subject minors found guilty of sexting to other minors to federal prison sentences of up to 15 years.

Johnson, like Higgins and Kennedy, is a Washington newcomer (all three took office in January of this year for the first time). In defending his bill, he says, “In Scripture, Romans 13 refers to the governing authorities as ‘God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.’ I, for one, believe we have a moral obligation as any just government, to defend the defenseless.”

If imprisoning teens for sexting is what he means by defending the defenseless, I shudder to think what his punishment might be, for example, for teens actually engaging in sex? And it’s not like that doesn’t occur.

So he wants to set himself as judge, jury and executioner. Well, I’m not at all comfortable with that. Who gave Mike Johnson franchise right on judging anyone’s moral code?

Okay, I know the answer to that because he’s already said so. He’s God’s servant.

Well, let’s go straight to the Good Book and review.

“But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21)

Well, there you go, Mike. And yet…and yet…didn’t Jesus rescue a prostitute from being stoned to death? I’m confused, Mike.

“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” (Psalm 137:9)

I dunno, Mike. That seems a bit extreme to me. But, hey! It’s right there in the Bible.

“Master, Moses wrote unto us, ‘If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.’” (Mark 12:19)

Guys, you may want to talk that over with your wife first. Unless, of course, you also subscribe to this little ditty:

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection” Timothy 2:11, also translated as: “I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent.”

And, Mike, don’t expect your wife to defend you because she will be punished if she does. It says so, right here:

“When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

By the “secrets”? Now, there’s a visual for you.

Here’s my favorite, Mike:

“For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, Or a man that is broken-footed, or brokenhanded, Or crookbacked, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken. No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.” (Leviticus 21:18-21) 

So what it’s saying here, Mike, is that heaven isn’t for people like Helen Keller, Ray Charles, Franklin Roosevelt or anyone who wears glasses or contacts.

Paraphrasing, Here a few more, offered without comment:

  • Don’t have a variety of crops on the same field. (Leviticus 19:19)
  • Don’t wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19)
  • Don’t cut your hair nor shave. (Leviticus 19:27)
  • Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed. (Leviticus 20:9)
  • If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a result, he must be punished. But he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property (Exodus 21:20-21)
  • Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh (I Peter 2:18)
  • Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property (Leviticus 25:44-45)
  • When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment(Exodus 21:7-11)

So, Mike, exactly what is your position on slavery these days?

The last thing this country needs now is for some little holier-than-thou despot to assert himself as the moral police over our teenagers—or over anyone else, for that matter.

Sexting is a disgusting practice I wouldn’t want my grandkids participating in. And to be sure, it is against the law—and should be. Adults who sext minors should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We can all agree on that. But you don’t toss a 15-year-old in federal prison for that. Like it or not, teens are going to do what teens do. Back when I was in school, They did their experimentations in the back seats of ’57 Chevys. At least they can’t get pregnant using an iPhone.

Only a sanctimonious jerk would seriously advocate federal prison for that.

Posted in Congress, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators | 29 Comments »

Sen. Alario’s SCR 122 offers appreciation to Mike Edmonson, passes Senate unanimously; let’s review LSP payroll record

June 6, 2017 by tomaswell

You just gotta love Louisiana politics.

No, really. It’s probably the only institution where one can set up his own little fiefdom, reward those in positions to promote his career, get caught up in multiple scandals, be forced to resign and be commended, appreciated, and otherwise recognized for his years of “dedicated and distinguished” service.

Take, for instance, Senate Concurrent Resolution 122, hereafter referred to as SCR 122, by State Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego), which commended, expressed appreciation and otherwise praised former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson. It passed by a 27-0 vote with 11 members either absent or not voting.

The resolution, which runs on for three full pages when a single paragraph would’ve sufficed, concludes with:

“BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby commend and express appreciation to Superintendent of Louisiana State Police Colonel Michael David Edmonson on his retirement after thirty-six years of dedicated and distinguished service in law enforcement, including nine years as superintendent, and does hereby extend to him and his family full measures of continued success and happiness in their future endeavors.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to Mike Edmonson.”

It seems entirely fitting that this resolution would have been authored by Alario. After all, his son John W. Alario, serves as the $115,000 a year director of the DPS Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission. That’s in the Department of Public Safety, where Edmonson also served as Deputy Secretary until his resignation.

LouisianaVoice also reported in September 2014 that John W. Alario’s wife, Dionne Alario, was hired in November 2013 at a salary of $56,300 to work out of her Westwego home supervising state police personnel in Baton Rouge—something of a logistics problem, to say the least. Well today, she is still there and now pulls down $58,500 per year. And she still works from home.

We were perfectly willing to let go of the Edmonson story after he resigned. But Sen. Alario’s resolution, however, compels us to review some of the highlights of Edmonson’s tenure as Superintendent of State Police.

Our first encounter with Edmonson came at the end of the 2014 legislative session when we learned that Charles Dupuy, who would rise to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, conspired, along with State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) and Gov. Bobby Jindal, to sneak the amendment to Senate Bill 294 during the closing minutes of the session that allowed Mike Edmonson a “do-over” on his decision to enter the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which froze his retirement at his pay at that time of his decision to participate in DROP.

The major problem with that little plan is that it left other state troopers and state employees who similarly opted to enter DROP and then received significant promotions or raises out in the cold because the amendment did not afford the same opportunity for them. Before it was revealed by LouisianaVoice and before State Sen. Dan Claitor successfully filed a lawsuit to prevent the move, Edmonson was in line for a whopping pension increase estimated as high as $100,000 per year when the raises to state police were factored into the equation. (Claitor, incidentally, was one of those voting in favor of Alario’s SCR 122 demonstrating, we suppose, that he does not hold grudges.)

Here are some other Edmonson actions we wrote about in 2014:

  • “Consultant” Kathleen Sill, placed on the state payroll and being paid $437,000 plus $12,900 in air travel for 21 flights for her between Baton Rouge and her Columbia, S.C. home.
  • DPS Undersecretary Jill Boudreaux’s taking a $46,000 cash payout incentive to retire early from her $92,000 per year salary as Deputy Undersecretary, plus about $13,000 in payment for 300 hours of accrued annual leave and then re-hiring herself two days later—with a promotion to Undersecretary and at a higher salary of $118,600—while keeping the incentive payment and annual leave payment. Then-Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis ordered her to repay the money but Davis resigned before she could follow through on her instructions. Under her successor, Paul Rainwater, the matter was quietly forgotten.
  • Boudreaux’s son-in-law Matthew Guthrie who, while employed in an offshore job, was simultaneously on the payroll for seven months (from April 2, 2012 to Nov. 9, 2012) as a $25 per hour “specialist” for the State Police Oil Spill Commission.
  • Danielle Rainwater, daughter of former Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater, who worked as a “specialist” for State Police.

And then there are the spouses brought into the fold.

  • Jason Starnes benefitted from two quick promotions from 2009 to 2014 as his salary jumped from $59,800 to $81,250, an increase. Three years later, he makes $150,750 an overall increase of 152 percent.
  • As if that were not enough, his then-wife Tammy was brought in from another agency as an Audit Manager at a salary of $92,900. Today, she makes $96.600. So not only did make nearly $11,700 a year more than her husband initially (until he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel), she also was in charge of monitoring the agency’s financial transactions, including those of her husband.
  • In January of 2008, just before Edmonson was named Superintendent of State Police by Gov. Bobby Jindal, State Trooper Charles Dupuy was pulling down $80,500. Today, the one-time Edmonson Chief of Staff makes $161,300, a bump of more than 100 percent.
  • Kelly McNamara and Dupuy, both troopers, met at work and eventually married and Kelly Dupuy’s star began ascending almost immediately. Her salary has gone from $65,000 in 2009 to $117,000 today
  • On Sept. 7, 2011, Mike Edmonson’s brother Paul was promoted from lieutenant to Captain, filling the spot previously held by Scott Reggio. On Oct. 10, 2013, Paul Edmonson was again promoted, this time to the rank of major. This time however, he was promoted into a spot in which there was no incumbent, indicating that the position was created especially for his benefit.
  • His rise has been nothing less than meteoric. Since December 2006, he has gone from the rank of sergeant to lieutenant to captain to major at warp speed and his pay rose accordingly, from $57,500 to $136,800 a year, a 138 percent increase—all under the watchful eye of his brother.

Doesn’t it give you a warm fuzzy to know that the good folks like Alario and Riser (who also, of course, voted for SCR 122) are looking out for us?

And isn’t it interesting, by the way, to know that Angele Davis, who tried to get Jill Boudreaux to repay her ill-gotten gains from her pseudo-early retirement, is pitted against Riser, who tried to sneak that illegal pension boost for Edmonson, in the upcoming election to succeed John Kennedy as State Treasurer?

As our late friend C.B. Forgotston would say if he were with us: You can’t make this stuff up.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Retirement, Senate, State Police | 11 Comments »

From legislators renaming schools to McCartheyesque congressmen, Harley Purvis has contempt for them all

June 5, 2017 by tomaswell

I found my friend Harley Purvis in his usual spot at John Wayne Culpepper’s Lip-Smackin’ Bar-B-Que House and Used Lightbulb Emporium in Watson, Louisiana—in the booth in the back in the corner in the dark. Also as usual, his mood matched the lighting. Not much brightens Harley’s moods these days.

Without bothering to look up as I slid into the booth opposite him, he said, “Idiots. We’re overrun with idiots.” It reminded me of Strother Martin’s line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when the outlaws fled to Bolivia to escort the payroll to the mines run by Martin. On the way down the mountain, Butch and Sundance were speculating where the banditos might be lying in ambush. “You idiots,” Martin scolded them, pointing out that they weren’t likely to be robbed going down the mountain when they had no money but on the trip back up when they would be transporting the payroll. “Imbeciles, I’m working with imbeciles,” he said as he spat a tobacco juice stream to the ground.

Without waiting for me to ask, Harley continued. “I remember when they first opened the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts up in Natchitoches. It was 1983 and it’s been the one shining star for Louisiana, something the state can be really proud of. Now they want to name it after a politician.”

The school, I already knew, was pushed hard by State Rep. Jimmy Long of Natchitoches, who passed away last August. I also knew that State Sen. Francis Thompson was pushing his SENATE BILL 1 which would rename the school as the Jimmy D. Long, Sr. Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts.

“That school has a great reputation and now they want to tack a politician’s name on it,” Harley grumped. “Is that gonna make the school better? I know Jimmy Long was the inspiration behind the creation of the school but there were others involved, too. There was State Sen. Don Kelly, Gov. Dave Treen and the Dean of the College of Education at Northwestern…what was his name?”

“Robert Alost,” I said. “His son Stan was a photographer for the Baton Rouge Advocate.”

“Yeah, whatever. Where they gonna put their names? Look what they did at Louisiana Tech, naming that Wyly Tower after Sam and Charles Wyly. Didn’t them boys get into a little trouble with the SEC and the IRS? Sam and the estate of his brother Charles owe the IRS something a little north of $3 billion, last I heard.

“Hell, why stop with that school? James Davison’s done a lot for Tech. Let’s rename it James Davison University. How about James A. Noe University in place of the University of Louisiana Monroe? Or Eddie Robinson University at Grambling?

“James Carville’s not even in the ball park wanting to erect a puny statute in honor of LSU’s first president. I say we just rename it the Gen. William T. Sherman University and get it over with.”

“What about McNeese, Nicholls State, ULL, Southeastern, UNO and Southern?” I asked.

He shot a withering look at me. “Dumbass, Nicholls and McNeese is already named after somebody. I ain’t give the others much thought yet, but I can come up with somebody appropriate if I tried. Next thing you know, somebody’s gonna have the bright idea to name Poverty Point the Francis Thompson Poverty Point State Park. An’ I bet Francis would like that. He’d probably lobby for it.”

Just as abruptly, he turned his wrath onto Congressman CLAY HIGGINS, who over the weekend, publicly advocated killing all “radicalized” Islamics. “This guy (Higgins) is a former reserve deputy city marshal and a former reserve deputy sheriff,” for God’s sake,” Harley said.

Shoving a folded newspaper at me, he pointed to the ARTICLE. I had already read the story in which Higgins advocated the killing of anyone even suspected of having links to terrorism. “The biggest problem with his plan, as I see it,” said Harley, “is that nowhere in this story does he spell out how such a suspect is to be determined. Looks to me like this former bastion of law and order is trying to set himself up to be accuser, judge and jury with no provision for due process. Does that sound like America to you?

“You know who he sounds like to me?

“Joe McCarthy,” he said, not waiting for me to reply. “He’s one of those clowns who, back in the 19th Century, would’ve sat up there in Washington and endorsed the wholesale slaughter of the American Indians. He would’ve been the first in line to put all Japanese-Americans in internment camps during WWII. I have a friend who calls that kind of fool an ass clown. I ain’t sure what it means, but I like the sound of it.

“Don’t get me wrong, we have to do something about these terrorist attacks. I wish I was smart enough I had the answer, but I don’t. But neither does Higgins—not with his kind of mindless B.S.

“I wonder how he feels about the radical wingnuts at Westboro Baptist Church?”

Harley noted that Higgins had once served as public information officer for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office. “He made all those stupid macho PR SPOTS for television,” he said. “Called himself ‘America’s toughest cop.’ One of ‘em even went viral and was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Hell, he was a PR flack who called himself the Cajun John Wayne. Cajun Barney Fife is more like it. It got so embarrassing for the sheriff’s office, he had to resign only to be sworn in the next month as a deputy city marshal in Lafayette. Now the damn fool’s a congressman.”

“The man was sued during his campaign by his ex-wife who said he was in arrears on his child support to the tune of about 140 grand. Know what he said in response to that? If he got elected, he could afford to pay. Now that he’s in, he still hasn’t paid and his lawyer says it’s because he’s ‘busy.’ He’s busy, all right. Busy making a damn fool of himself and a laughingstock of the state.”

Harley took a long drink of coffee and set his cup down in disgust.

“Idiots. We’re overrun with idiots.”

Posted in Congress, Legislature, Legislators | 4 Comments »

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