Day: May 12, 2010

BREAKING: Nola.com has announced they are fighting Mr. Theriot's subpoena. Meantime Mr Theriot waxes nonsensical on the record.

I tell you folks this bunch is the gift that keeps on giving. Rich Rainey at the Times Picayune reports you decide:

Even as he sues his online detractors for alleged defamation, Jefferson Parish interim President Steve Theriot said today his goal is to use their tips to improve the local government.

He told the Parish Council that the lawsuit he filed against anonymous users of www.NOLA.com is aimed at addressing the concerns they raise — not at blocking criticism of the government.

Word is Theriot’s nose grew several inches after making those remarks and Rich has even more in his report as Theriot continues to make a fool of himself on the record. We’ve been threatened, not served here at Slabbed but I’m extremely gratified to know Nola.com is doing the right thing here. I’m told that Louisiana has a special anti SLAPP law which can be found here. It is my hope NOLA avails itself of the provision regarding recovery of court costs. NOLA.com made it clear today their stance on this matter as we continue:

“NOLA.com and Advance Internet believe it is vitally important that responsible members of our online community feel free to comment on our site about issues important to them without fear of retribution or reprisal from the government,” O’Byrne said. Continue reading “BREAKING: Nola.com has announced they are fighting Mr. Theriot's subpoena. Meantime Mr Theriot waxes nonsensical on the record.”

Slabbed keeps it's finger on the public pulse in Jefferson Parish. Lets review some Youtube vids of public comments on the SLAPP suit from today's Parish Council meeting. UPDATED 2X

Well Mr Theriot, it can never be said you were not given a chance. Your reputation is going down in flames along with every other member of the Parish Council. So while you guys and girls were enjoying the mess you made today at the Parish Council we’ve gotten offers of free legal help from members of the bar here in Mississippi to go along with the ones we’ve received from our friends in Louisiana. Someone even took it upon themselves to send email to the good people at public justice who does great work in this area.

Elsewhere our friend Alan Lange at Yallpolitics in Jackson has sounded the alarm along with someone on former radio show host Dan Carlin’s website. We shattered our previous page view record for one day yesterday and are on pace to shatter that record today. Even better people are going back over all the old posts we’ve done on the federal investigation to date. For a blogger it just doesn’t get much better.

Speaking of bloggers there is a special kind called Vloggers and it looks like our own Unslabbed is an aspiring one as these public access vid captured from today’s meeting are already up on the internet. I’m told more are coming and I’ll embed them as they are uploaded. Here is the first, 2 public comments that address the lawsuit head on: Continue reading “Slabbed keeps it's finger on the public pulse in Jefferson Parish. Lets review some Youtube vids of public comments on the SLAPP suit from today's Parish Council meeting. UPDATED 2X”

How about some live blogging from the Parish Council meeting (UPDATED 2X)

We’re getting some text messages from folks in attendance. The early snippets do not look encouraging folks and the gang evidently continues to visit the lemonaide spring over at Big Rock Candy Mountain:

Waxing nonsensical to beging the meeting.

OMG. He (Theriot) just said he encourages transparency and input. He whined about ‘anonymous’ comments and said the Parish needs to know about anything anyone has that affects the Parish. He commented on people coming to the Council Mtg to speak and how the Parish ‘welcomes’ such input!

The council is complimenting Theriot on his excellent job with the Oil Spill. Continue reading “How about some live blogging from the Parish Council meeting (UPDATED 2X)”

"The Ultimate Hypocrisy" – so many options – but this hypocrite is Liberty Mutual

Sometime in early-2008, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company began a new advertising campaign called the “Responsibility Project”. The company calls it a place to discuss “doing the right thing”. I will get to the hypocrisy of an insurance company having the audacity to suggest that it wants to assist others in “doing the right thing”, below.

Before we go “below”, SLABBED points out it made a similar observation recently Liberty Mutual accepts “responsibility”.  Credit for this second perspective, Liberty Mutual’s “Responsibility Project”: The Ultimate Hypocrisy, goes to attorney Mark Bello with h/t to Mr. Liberty Mutual.

A recent entry to the “Responsibility Project” library is a short film entitled “Lawyers”. This is the story of two lawyers, a man and a woman, who are about to meet in a sushi bar. They have been dating awhile, and the man brings an engagement ring to “pop the question”. They begin a discussion about a case that the woman is handling. When the woman is not looking, the man places the ring on the carousel that carries a selection of sushi rolling past their location. His plan is that the ring will come around the circle, she will see it, and he will ask her to marry him. It is very romantic. Continue reading “"The Ultimate Hypocrisy" – so many options – but this hypocrite is Liberty Mutual”

The Times Picayune weighs in on Jefferson Parish v the Blogosphere. Open season declared on Parish President Theriot.

Once, when I was still wet behind the ears financial blogger that was full of himself after making some money in the market I didn’t keep my eyes on the ball and literally ended up making an ass of myself in front of a very well-heeled audience. The lessons learned from that experience serve me well to this day. Amazingly the  people that stuck it to me (using sand instead of vaseline) then refused to run me off instead encouraging me to take another bite at the apple. Besides learning the ropes I’ve repaid that favor  few times since and though Nowdy has never acted the part of ass online or in print she had to go through the “Sop crucible” before we started doing this little project called Slabbed together. I say that not to brag nor reminisce; rather because I’ll again repay that favor. Along those lines and before we get to Rich’s story I’d like to take a second to address Mr Theriot directly.

Believe it or not I receive emails from time to time that tell me I have you read wrong. They tell me you’re not a bad fella but you are getting lots of bad advice. You came in as a caretaker but the press built you up as something more than that and that did not happen on its own. Expectations were created, by you in fact. Quickly it became apparent the reality was business as usual though I must give you guys credit for some reforms that have been enacted. But all that was overshadowed by the ongoing federal investigation into Aaron Broussard, Tim Whitmer, Tom Wilkinson and numerous others.

When it became apparent the tentacles of the scope of corruption in the Parish exceeded Whitmer and Broussard you made your first mistake by chipping in with those accused of wrongdoing. Not only that you sent an employee that was simply doing their job home because you suspected her as a source of press leaks. In your world it was not the double-dealing that was problematic, rather it was the fact people were finding out about it. Once you became an enabler you also became a target. People started digging; even worse for you our researcher Bayrat4life took an interest and the result was our post on the Dan Robin lawsuit.

You still have several weeks left in office before the special election. I’m not a communications expert but I’ll tell you what I’d tell my paying clients. Continue reading “The Times Picayune weighs in on Jefferson Parish v the Blogosphere. Open season declared on Parish President Theriot.”