By now, everyone is well aware of Gov. Landry’s staunch efforts to block every public records request we’ve made since he assumed office entailing Louisiana State Police (LSP).
As we illustrated in our last feature, he is now adamant (and quite pompous as well) in seeking to do the same with every Louisiana citizen.
We were present at the Louisiana Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday (Wednesday, April 17, 2024) on SB-482 by Senator Heather Cloud (R-Turkey Creek) (we’re nicknaming her “Ms. Priss”). This is a video blog, so here we go, folks:
Highlights of Cloud (a/k/a “Ms. Priss”) presenting her bill. Though Cloud admits to not being an attorney (though not on the above video of highlights), she had her talking points on a laptop on court cases that were virtually certainly supplied by Landry’s Executive Counsel, Angelique Freel (whom we met one time while she served at the AG’s Office and were less than impressed). She certainly used them to talk down to members of the Committee (hence, the nickname “Ms. Priss”).
————————————————-
Note in the video above that Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser is on record as supporting the bill, as is Attorney General Liz Murrill, and a source tells us that Treasurer John Fleming is in support of the bill as well.
—————————————————
Prominent media and public records attorney Scott Sternberg only needs a few minutes to authoritatively counter Ms. Priss’ arguments.
Investigative reporters Lee Zurik and Chris Nakamoto slam Cloud’s bill along with Rebecca Mowbray, President and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, who also testified against Cloud’s bill.
Belinda Parker-Brown, Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, and Steven Procopio, President of the Public Affairs Research Council, testify in opposition to Cloud’s bill.
Thus, Edwards’ statement that he had made an “over commitment” was a demonstrably false statement, and Edwards simply removed Phillips due to all the pressure from Phillips’ auctioneer colleagues (coincidentally all white back then as Phillips is the first — and for a LONG time only — African American Auctioneer in Louisiana).
WBRZ Managing Editor Kelly Kissell and Bruce Reilly, Deputy Director of VOTE (Voice of the Experienced) testify against Cloud’s bill.
Dovetailing on commentary by Sen. Greg Miller, R-NORCO, Billy Broussard testifies against Cloud’s bill.
Let us point out just a few quick things entailing Broussard:
1. As he indicated, his attorney as apparent fraud was being perpetrated in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita was then private citizen Jeff Landry, whom 16th JDC Judge David Ritchie faulted for “filing an illegal lien.” Ritchie even went so far as to tell Broussard to, “choose your attorney carefully.”.
3. In a meeting with Broussard at the Legislative Auditor’s Office on or about February 3, 2019, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns witnessed first-hand John Morehead rebuffing Broussard’s claims of fraud by saying that it wasn’t possible given that, “Dan Kennedy with FEMA signed off on all of this debris removal.” Burns also witnessed Brossard say that, “I’m telling you that I was on this project virtually every day, and I have yet to meet Dan Kennedy!”
4. It was at the conclusion of that meeting, when Burns himself (who is an inactive CPA) stated to then-Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but your office is examining the documentation only on the back end, and nobody from your office is out at these sites performing any kind of inspection on whether the debris removal is eligible for FEMA reimbursement or not.” Purpera stated that Burns’ statement was correct and that no physical inspections of debris removal are performed by the Legislative Auditor’s Office.
5. At a subsequent meeting with the Legislative Auditor’s Office, at which Sen. Blake Miguez was present and then-Senator Fred Mills attended via teleconference of Wednesday, February 6, 2019, Burns again witnessed (and videotaped) Broussard playing an audio recording file in which Mark DeBosier, former Deputy Director of GOHSEP, bragged of the ability to get the Legislative Auditor’s Office to, “close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and we make sure there’s no fingerprints on it.” [Note: CLICK HERE for a crystal clear audio file of DeBosier’s statements.]
On the video above, Broussard reveals the fact that Landry is his cousin. It’s truly ironic that Broussard’s own cousin, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, seeks to block citizens from obtaining the same type of damning material Broussard obtained solely and exclusively from his public records requests!
Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns, along with C. J. Matthews, testify against Cloud’s bill.
Our site visitors will recall our extensive series on former Ascension Parish Captain C. J. Matthews and the corruption he alleges has been rampant at the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office with him supplying us (which we provide to visitors) with extensive documentation he obtained via his own public records requests.
After former Representative Barry Ivey (though he doesn’t like that title and wants as much distance as possible placed between his name and the Louisiana Legislature) testifies to the fact that Landry sued an Advocate reporter for making a public records request (for more details, scroll to the near-end of this feature), Sen. Cloud, who was MIA, came in to close on her bill.
Drum roll please………….Here’s the vote, but note the eight-second delay between Chairman Fields asking, “What’s your pleasure?” and anyone volunteering to say the first word!!!!!!!!! We guess everyone’s a tad nervous about risking their political careers to follow an egomaniac, narcissistic Governor of Louisiana in the person of Jeff Landry.
From our vantage point, Jeff Landry is the car-equivalent of a clunker, and Louisiana needs a “lemon law” so that we can just return him to the lot because he is obviously severely defective!
Since we can’t just return him to the lot, our approach is to adopt one simple slogan:
“Garret Graves ’27!”
CLICK HERE to see this train wreck bill presentation in its entirety.
Appearing at the Baton Rouge Press Club’s meeting of Monday, April 8, 2024, Louisiana Senate President Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) fields a question by Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns regarding bills filed on the last day to do so in the current Legislative session entailing restricting access to public records.
Executive Summary for Gov. Landry:
Whenever your name is being directly linked to former Gov. Bobby Jindal, our advice is to reverse that phenomenon as quickly as possible!
Cloud’s Senate Bill 482 goes the furthest of those bills by gutting from the list of records eligible for public access all documents that detail “deliberations” in government work. It would exempt documents containing “advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations” that feed into any government decision or policy-making choices.
Watchdog groups and attorneys dealing with public information issues decried the bill Wednesday. Melia Cerrato, a Sunshine Legal Fellow at Tulane University’s First Amendment Law Clinic, called it “extremely alarming” and said it risked violating the state’s constitution.
“This will create government secrecy on a level that should alarm people regardless of where they are on the political spectrum,” Cerrato said. “This is bad government.”
Cloud in a text message said she was traveling and unable to fully comment on SB 482
Translation (entailing Cloud): She has no clue what’s even in the bill and merely agreed to slap her name on it at the last second at Gov. Landry’s request!
Again, from the above-linked article:
Kate Kelly, the governor’s press secretary, said lawmakers filed dozens of bills in the hours before the deadline and that Landry’s staff is “still sifting through them.”
Do Landry’s folk really believe the citizens of Louisiana are so stupid as to believe these Senators fell out of bed and filed these bills? They were all filed at the direct request of Gov. Landry, so what a crock Kelly’s quote is!
Again, from the above-linked article:
Asked if Landry supports her bill, Cloud said in a text message, “I sure hope so.”
Well, duh! Given that Landry is the one who is behind the bill and merely using Cloud’s name as sponsor, one can only figure that, well, duh, Landry supports it!
A dedicated Sound Off Louisiana fan texted us the Advocate article the very morning it was published. Burns immediately responded with the following text to a high-ranking member of Jindal’s Landry’s top brass (sent on April 4, 2024 @ 7:58 a.m.):
He has TOTALLY stonewalled my PRRs on LSP and now this horse manure?????
This better not get signed into law or he won’t get my vote or support for being President of a Civic association!!!!!
This is worse than Bobby Jindal 2.0!!!!!
I’m so mad with him right now I could bite a 10-penny nail!!
One of the reasons we’ve waited so long to publish this feature is that Burns needed an extended period to calm down to compose something fit for print!
So, on Monday, April 8, 2024, Senate President Cameron Henry was the guest speaker at the Baton Rouge Press Club, so Burns decided that was a great opportunity to get his thoughts on the bills [though Burns did inadvertently fail to recognize that Sen. Jay Morris is no longer in the House of Representatives and, like so many other former Republican House Members, is now a Member of the Louisiana Senate — hey, he’s only been there four (4) years, give us a little time!!]. Here’s what President Henry had to say:
Louisiana Sen. President Cameron Henry responds to Burns’ question about the public records requests bills filed on the last day of the current Legislative session for filing bills.
Notice President Henry’s repeated references to former Gov. Bobby Jindal as he discusses Sen. Cloud’s bill! We know Gov. Landry is a busy man, so we provided the “executive summary” at the top of this feature for his convenience.
We want to now strongly, strongly, strongly, encourage every single person who is reading this feature to take just 14 minutes of your time to listen to the following broadcast of Tuesday, April 9, 2024 on WWL Radio in New Orleans by former Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand:
The reason we are so strongly encouraging everyone to listen to Norman’s 14-minute broadcast linked above is that, being honest, we could work for a week to try and be as articulate about the matter as Norman and not succeed. His broadcast is THAT good!!
With that, let’s update everyone on our public records request on the male trooper having allegedly sent a text picture of his genitalia to a female trooper followed by a text saying, “You could have this!” That is the first linked-feature above:
1. LSP asked us to resubmit the public records request because the timeframe we supplied for the alleged incident (November 1, 2023 through March 18, 2024) didn’t cover it. LSP also asked us: “Do you want the number of complaints or do you want the complaints themselves?”
2. We responded indicating that we want all complaints against the trooper from the time he was first employed by LSP through the then-current date of April 8, 2024.
3. We reached out to our sources for the initial feature, and they all said, “Oh, there’s a ton of them. He’s been doing things like that throughout his LSP career.”
Perhaps those are inconvenient facts that Gov. Landry and LSP Col. Hodges want to conceal from us, but we’ll also point out that we have two other public records requests for which Landry/Hodges have done nothing but stonewall us on, and we can’t help but wonder if perhaps that served as a catalyst for the bills filed on the last day of session (particularly Cloud’s).
1. The case was postponed again. This time to April 25, 2024. The stated reason was to, “give all parties time to review the evidence.”
2. The judge declined to grant any sanity commission.
3. An inference was made that Satcher’s probation would likely be revoked (NEVER should have been extended to him by “tough on crime” — except for domestic abusers and/or politically-connected LSP Troopers — then-Attorney General Jeff Landry in the first place!!).
The folk we’ve consulted with regarding Satcher’s present situation is that he’s likely looking at “significant” jail time notwithstanding retired Judge Swent’s (allegedly Satcher’s great aunt) efforts to come to his rescue pulling the despicable act she attempted as outlined on the just-linked feature.
So, folks, we’ll keep our site visitors updated on LSP corruption and the Commander In Chief of LSP’s (LA-1, Gov. Jeff Landry’s) less-than-subtle efforts to shield the public from knowing about such corruption!
