Day: March 25, 2013

The more things change…….

Reader submitted photo. Letter from the late Joe Yenni to Marie Krantz
Reader submitted photo. Letter from the late Joe Yenni to Marie Krantz

There were some that claimed Slabbed was too hard on Sean Alfortish before he went to the pokey, including Alfortish himself at his sentencing. I sayeth not:

Legislative auditor revisits horsemen’s group, finds more flagrant spending ~ John Simerman

“Two former leaders and four other employees of the organization that represents Louisiana Horsemen went nuts on the association’s credit cards, with more than $800,000 in suspect spending over a five-year period, according to an investigative audit released Monday morning by Louisiana Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office.”

Meantime a reader points out ol’ BrousStar was not the only Kenner pol to clip and send.

Early voting has begun for the Division D Judicial race in the 24th JDC

And the local CFGG has sent out an email blast urging people to go vote which is good advice.  This race has 4 candidates though editorially Slabbed has eliminated John Sudderth from consideration leaving 3 qualified candidates for the voters to choose from.

That said the post I did on Sudderth’s connection to the Judge Green prosecution had a good bit of banter about candidate Hillary Landry, who was endorsed by the local Alliance for Good Government.  As a group the Slabbed Nation is not much on establishment endorsements but I will add that my lawyer Bobby Truitt has laid money down in support of Hillary Landry and that is meaningful to me.

With that set up I need to correct the record because there was a good bit of talk about Landry’s sister being married to Chris Coulon in that prior post, such information not being up to date as “marriage” is past tense in this case. To that extent Sis is a private citizen whose private life is not salient to this race. I’d also like to point out that Mrs Landry’s hubby is a very successful trial lawyer in his own right as both Mickey and Hillary have made their own way on the local bar. That is not an endorsement but I do think a fair portrayal of the situation at Team Landry.

What does interest me is it appears only two of the candidates, Sudderth and Landry have money for TeeVee.  I liked the second Landry commercial better than the first.  If I’ve missed any political advertisements for Lorraine Perkins McInnis and Scott Schlegel help me fill in the blanks in comments.

Now back to that TeeVee thing as I sense there is a Connick in the woodpile.  Remember this race once included Julie Quinn and her ghost may be playing a role in the campaign. If I divine any juicy muck I’ll pass it along.

DMR Scandal Day 151: Of brother in laws, toy helicopters and no accountability

It sure is folks as I have enough data points to call BS, assign blame and point a finger or two but first.

DMR required no formal bids for $5.8 million in reef work ~ Anita Lee and Paul Hampton

I love seeing the term “conprofit” in reader commentary as it is a living testament to the very good work Jason over at AZ did on Cedric “C-Note” Richmond.  In this case the fishing community filled a need after Hurricane Camille forming the Mississippi Gulf Fishing Banks to build artificial reefs in state waters.  After federal money earmarked for the purpose of reef building entered the fray, politically connected swine moved in to slop on the trough. In the end a little bit of good work gets done but it is really about the slop (and the hope by those wanting to do good the slopping swine will occasionally throw them a bone). This brings me to another point that I made a few weeks ago because the Sun Herald editorial board has picked up on what is going on.

Legislature still has time to require audits of all agencies ~ Sun Herald Editorial Board

So where is former State Auditor turned Gov Phil Bryant on this?  In hiding perhaps?  You see folks despite years of spouting off  “In God we trust all others we audit” in his standard Auditor Bryant stump speech, nothing of the sort was happening in the State Agencies where the vast majority of the tax money is spent.  Gov Phil claims to be a Christian man and he in fact panders to the religious right at every opportunity but what I see is a liar that does not practice what he preaches.  He lied to coast resident Kevin Buckle about supporting the Insurance Policyholder Bill of Rights when he was running for Gov, just like he routinely told that whopper when he was state auditor. The lack of oversight benefits him thus the inaction.

The bottom line is accountability in state government is not what Phil Bryant is about so let’s roll in Mark Moseley and Fred Heebe as the concept is the exact same as Jeffrey over at the Yellow Blog well explained:

High ranking public officials are not “dragonslayers.” They are club men. Their most common distinguishing characteristic is cowardice. This isn’t always a bad thing, of course. Because we are fortunate enough to live under a mildly responsive, somewhat functional, kind of democratic form of government, we can occasionally frighten the cowardly club men into doing the right thing. But what that requires from us is constant attention, and much screaming and yelling at no small expense to our leisure, our security, and to our pocketbooks.

Even so the failure rate remains high. The club, after all, is the club and its members enjoy many privileges most of us do not. In any case, there is no time in this to stop and pretend any of our presumed leaders, even when occasionally made to behave, is our friend.

If the entirety of state government were to be audited how many more of Phil Bryant’s political supporters would be under the gun?  Remember folks, Bryant took money from Billy Walker’s taxpayer funded conprofit without giving it a second thought.  Conversion of public money to serve their private self interest is how these snakes get elected to begin with but alas maybe years of auditing Mississippi government has left me jaded as I’ve seen state and local governments throw away tens of millions of dollars through the years, so I found the following somewhat amusing but certainly not shocking: Continue reading “DMR Scandal Day 151: Of brother in laws, toy helicopters and no accountability”