Day: February 1, 2011

Does your social network matter? Slabbed explores a few of Ron Maestri’s social connections and his role in the Jefferson Parish Political Corruption Scandal.

Does your social network matter?  My own opinion, as it relates to the Jefferson Parish Political Corruption Scandal is it fundamentally does as some very hard decisions must be made on whom to prosecute and for what crimes. Before I get into the details of some information I’ve been holding for several weeks now we must set up some very important concepts beginning with cognitive bias which is defined as distortions in the way people perceive reality, and in particular a subset known as Group-serving bias and one of that subset’s progeny, Ingroup bias:

Ingroup bias is the preferential treatment people give to those whom they perceive to be members of their own groups.

Experiments in psychology have shown that group members will award one another higher pay-offs even when the “group” they share seems random and arbitrary, such as having the same birthday, having the same final digit in their U.S. Social Security Number, or even being assigned to the same flip of a coin.

In less fancy terms we favor our friends, our church community, our classmates, our tailgate group or whatever group of people we happen to identify with. This is important because of a “journalistic fact” left in Telemachus’ comment that we featured in part 1: Continue reading “Does your social network matter? Slabbed explores a few of Ron Maestri’s social connections and his role in the Jefferson Parish Political Corruption Scandal.”

Boring people may talk about the weather – but there’s nothing boring about this weather news or the financial disaster to follow!

°When the news reports a Massive storm begins trek across midwest, it’s a safe bet that the nation’s disaster assistance funds will be tapped:

As a monster storm began to bear down on the middle of the nation Tuesday, those in its frigid and dangerous path could only hope it wouldn’t live up to the hype.

The storm threatened to leave up to a third of the nation covered in a hodge-podge of brutal winter weather. Its reach was impressive: Snow and ice could fall along a 2,000-mile stretch from Colorado to Maine, tornadoes were possible in the South, and the weather was disrupting millions of people from Super Bowl travelers to schoolchildren.

Saturday here was a glorious 72° of sunshine!  The weather this storm is bringing, however, is an entirely different matter. Continue reading “Boring people may talk about the weather – but there’s nothing boring about this weather news or the financial disaster to follow!”

Telemachus lends context to the now infamous Dutchie Connick memo and enables Slabbed to roll out Ron Maestri. Part 1, important background information.

Folks, if there has been one piece of information disclosed to us that has survived the test of time to this point, it is that multiple Jefferson Parish politicians have personal stakes in seeing River Birch succeed.  This factoid was disclosed to Nowdy and I very early on in this unfolding saga and was reinforced by the John Alario / Dan Robin litigation with River Birch that we ran across and reported on in March 2010.  To make a further connection, one straight into Jim Letten’s office, we must first begin with Telemachus’ comment left yesterday on my last major post on Waste Management which placed the Dutchie Connick memo into context.

To further set things up I think we all need to understand the Dutchie Connick Memo is evidence that has come to light because of the Parish’s suit against Waste Management and comes straight from the “Dutchie file” kept by Waste Management.  What’s new is that coupled with the depositions we recently published, we can now see the River Birch scheme was hatched way back in 2004. If I were a betting man, I’d lay money that Jennifer Sneed Heebe knew when she ran for re-election in 2007 she would not finish the term. She wasn’t the only one either IMHO and that is where Telemachus hits pay dirt for us by bringing in the name of the now interim tax assessor, Ron Maestri. Before we get to Ron let’s start with Telemachus:

Have we thought about this memo enough?

Why is Dutchie important?
Why?

He had been a campaign manager for DA Connick and had faced off vs Chehardy – no love lost there.

October 2004 – the first putsch to install River Birch, from the 10.13.04 TP: Continue reading “Telemachus lends context to the now infamous Dutchie Connick memo and enables Slabbed to roll out Ron Maestri. Part 1, important background information.”

Twice right – Attorney General Jim Hood asks Judge Barbier to oversee BP claims settlement

After the the Class-Action-that-didn’t-happen early on in Hurricane Katrina litigation, alternative resolution was made available.  According to the website of the Jackson office of Baker Donelson, this option was the “brainchild” of the former assistant commissioner of the Mississippi Insurance Department (MID) and current Baker Donelson attorney, Lee Harrell:

Established the MID Hurricane Katrina Mediation Program and the U.S. Federal Court Mediation Program, which streamlined the claims handling process and resolved thousands of claims quickly and satisfactorily without lengthy and expensive litigation…

Others see Harrell and his brainchild in a different light – mediation fraud.

However, it would have been preventable mediation fraud had the Southern District Mississippi court taken oversight of the process as requested by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.  Via a recently filed “Statement of Interest on Behalf of the State of Mississippi”, Hood has made a similar request of  Judge Barbier for much the same reason he ask the Mississippi court to protect hurricane disaster victims:

The Attorney General’s Statement to U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier asks the court to take control in order “to correct the deficiencies in the GCCF as outlined in the PSC’s Motion and in this Statement of Interest, in order to facilitate the timely and just processing of claims…“I want Mr. Feinberg to continue paying claims, but I want the process to be transparent, fair and fast…”

Judge Barbier has additional incentive provided by he-who-didn’t-make-the-Steering-Committee.  Continue reading “Twice right – Attorney General Jim Hood asks Judge Barbier to oversee BP claims settlement”