Day: December 11, 2012

Guest post: Republicans now the official party of corruption in the South

Eric Hoffer once wrote, “Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.” This comment is frequently misquoted, but the idea is always basically the same.

The Republican Party in Louisiana is an example of this phenomenon. When I registered to vote 45 years ago, I insisted to register as a Republican despite my inability to vote in the Democratic primaries, which were where all the elections actually occurred. I was determined to protest the incompetence and the graft that was everywhere. We few, we happy few, grew in numbers over the years as Louisiana fell further behind other states and the obvious contrast with the competent (Texas, North Carolina, etc.) became more and more blatant.

We even eventually elected Republican governors! Alas, the results were not good. Treen and Roemer were politically incompetent and nothing really changed. But we kept hoping that the right man would actually change things. Then we moved to Foster and the reality was in your face: The Republican party was now officially a racket. The coup de grâce (or cup of grass) was for John Alario to convert to the Republican party. O tempora o mores!

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Slabbed commenter Uptown Music is a resident of New Orleans.

Slabbed welcomes all points of view on the topics we cover. Our readers can submit guest columns to Doug. While we allow anonymous comments on the blog, guest columnist must submit a verifiable name and contact information in order to be published.

They have a way of making enemies everywhere: Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret threaten a Canadian Journalist

Fake press releases? This folks can only be the work of SLAPP happy nut jobs doing the bidding of their corrupt business associates:

—– Original Message —–
From: foodvacation Canada
To: Timothy Gillespie
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: slabbed

Timothy:

The “press release” issued by Trout Point Lodge today didn’t really go out to the news media.

It was only sent to one email address other than the one belonging to Trout Point: [email protected]

The slabbed blog has now published it in full a few hours after it was sent to you. This was a test to see if you were conspiring with Mr. Handshoe.

We are frankly once again shocked by your behaviour and doubly over by your hatefulness and bigotry. We thought of you as a friend in the local community.

You will be hearing from us again, using public and civil methods rather than the anonymous, underhanded, and cowardly ones you have used.

Charles

Now that Mr Gillespie has failed to knuckle under to their predatory tactics he is now termed a conspirator in Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret latest SLAPP happy screed but folks the jackassery from the Trout Point Lodge duo only gets worse. Continue reading “They have a way of making enemies everywhere: Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret threaten a Canadian Journalist”

Repost: Setting the bar in the court of public opinion

The series of events that have transpired in the NOLA political landscape as of late have me thinking about politics, justice, the media and how they all interact. Since the storm, we’ve seen local media and law enforcement entities focus their attention on rooting out corruption among political offices and governmental agencies. Recently we’ve seen the local media shift their focus, thanks to Fred Heebe, on possible “corruption” (that doesn’t necessarily mean illegality) within the local U.S Attorneys’ Office, itself.

And thanks to the Newhouse cull we’ve even seen local media, for a brief moment, reluctantly turn the spotlight on itself and this is the matter I want to address in this post.

We saw panel after panel discussing what the effects of the Times-Picayune “downsizing” would be, as well as numerous editorial pieces from local blogs like this one to the national media outlets like the NYT. Occasionally, issues of possible ethical matters among our local media resources were discussed in some of those conversations but all in all that particular discussion was a rarity. I suppose that’s because it’s rather uncomfortable for media folk to turn the lens on themselves or the entity writing their paychecks and question matters of integrity.

Perhaps the most outstanding moment in the past few years where this issue arose was the discovery that WWL talk radio host, Garland Robinette, took a 100k loan from River Birch landfill operator, Fred Heebe. Continue reading……..